From Protest to Engagement

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Event Name: From Protest to Engagement
Transcription Date:Transcription Modified Date: 5/26/2019
Transcript Version: 1


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what I mean people have been here a long time we lost some people they just either had to go and catch the tube or they had something on the tube they wanted to watch or something I don't know but I wanted to make a few remarks.

First of all I I want to address a few issues that I think are important and perhaps not for most of the people in the room but for other people and I would like you to convey this to the other people there are people that have been talking about the work that's being done by Floyd Nettie by a Brahman by Farina by the other groups that have been involved in this effort that this

is a government propaganda that this is

Stooges of the government of England etc

etc many things I'm sure some of you

have have heard some of these things so

I want to say a few things about that

first of all there's a verse in the

Quran that is very interesting to me and

probably to most of you and Jenna who

does said to me for Jenna ahem if people

incline towards reconciliation inclined

with them whatever canal Allah and

trusting God in know who was similar I

mean when you redo any of the oka for in

the hospital law that incline when they

want to incline towards peace you

incline towards peace and if they want

to deceive you if there's some hidden

ulterior motive God's enough for you

don't worry about that that's not your

concern

peace is so precious that anybody that

reaches out for peace you should reach

out with them for peace and another

thing I want to say about this

government who do you think this guy

is there called civil servants who do

you think pays their money where do you

think this money is from that the

government had it's from the pockets of

the British people who pay taxes there's

2 million Muslims in this country paying

tax they don't want a little refund no

seriously I mean I I'm just amazed at

this Omaha if I said I could oh I'm well

that go far beautiful and yeah is you

the wealth of the non-muslims if they

want to give it to you it's permissible

to take it

now I sat yesterday I will to write an

autism share Abdullah bin about yeah I I

didn't want to come here I'm gonna be

honest with you I was in California I

have my wife is a brilliant cook really

I I don't

there's no hotel food that compares to

her food it's not why I married her she

learned to cook after I married her but

she's a brilliant cook her food is very

good its nourishing I feel good when

when I eat her food and she cooks it

with love you can't get that in a

restaurant I can taste the anxiety in

their food I can taste the anger of the

cook when he's going through the thing I

can feel it my my cells feel it but and

I also have really good tea I come to

England to buy the tea I take it back I

have big supply my tea is much better

than the tea they give at any hotel I've

ever stayed at I learned how to make tea

from of that Adam Sanders excellent tea

maker if anybody's ever had his tea

they'll know what I mean so but why

leave the comfort of my home because my

chef asked me he said this is an

important thing so come so I came I'm

tired so I'm gonna be whenever I get

tired I get more open because my

defenses are down I'm going to tell you

some true things I used to not like the

English people

seriously I thought they were cynical

you know the English go the way they

roll their eyes there's a certain way

that you know that there's a smirk that

comes on their mouths when you say

something really very subtle things that

you notice about the English you know

there's a cynicism that's particularly

angled Saxon in its nature and and and

it's it's really interesting but I'll

tell you something I have come to love

these people and for a number of reasons

and I and I want to talk about this

because it's very important for all of

you who are living here this country is

an amazing country it has done many

wrongs and we could bring an Irish

person here tonight and they could talk

for hours about what this country has

done we could bring Welsh people they

might not be as eloquent as the Irishmen

but they could also talk for several

hours about what the English have done

to them and you could bring some of my

tribe from Scotland really you could

bring some of them down and they'll give

you with a nice brogue they'll let you

know what the English did from Edward

Longshanks on or even before that

seriously they'll tell you about the

English but each one of these people has

been challenged to learn to live with

the English really the Scots are very

civil they some of them want

independence quite a number of them but

how are they going about that

independence they're not blowing up

things really they have other ways of

doing it the Welsh de-evolution is have

been a longtime though they say that

Welsh are the Irish that couldn't swim

you know it's been a long time since the

Welsh have been occupied much longer

than Palestine but the Welsh are gentle

people

I love the Welsh also really and I love

the Irish but it's taken me a while to

really appreciate the subtleties of

these different cultures

and so I really want to say there's two

ways that you can live in your life one

way is the way of personal one it's

having a good opinion and the other way

is the way of Sullivan and years ago my

shaykh abdullah bin bayer we were in a

gathering and he doesn't tolerate vibha

it's one of the things i love about his

modulus is he doesn't tolerate me but

you can't say anything about anybody

even people that you should say things

about he won't let you say things about

them and somebody mentioned something

about jimana Dean and Ronnie who died a

long time ago last century two centuries

ago and somebody said something and she

Abdullah said a word I never forgot it

he said yeah Arsenal unban Mota Jenner

of Nassau of one

he said have a good opinion of the dead

we've tried having bad opinions we've

tested it as a way of being in the world

and our Prophet SAW lyceum had the best

of opinions whenever the chorus reached

out for him he reached out for them

morale yeah we know in the Arabic

tradition they called Shara moralia the

the hair of Moria wow he is one of the

most brilliant politicians in human

history

he's a case study you could do the

leadership secrets of Mallya and it

would be a best-seller while yeah they

asked him and he said if there was a

hair of relationship between me and

somebody else Eva's death if he pulled

on it I would release if he released I

would pull a hair of relationship just

to keep that that opening there that

potential now I met yesterday and you

should be thankful that you have people

like Maqbool Ali inside the Foreign

Office because I have a good opinion of

that young man he's a bright young man

and he has good intentions and he's

there he's representing your community

you live here you pay taxes this is your

government you this is not Rawalpindi

this is not Karachi this is not Cairo

this is not some funny place off in the

middle of the Muslim world where if you

say anything against the government

suddenly you're in Chains being dragged

away no this is a country that you are

citizens Larry will be Javed but it

wasn't a kingdom if you had a better I

swear by this land and you are a lawful

citizen of this land you are citizens

this is not subjection you're not

subjects except in in a very you know

the British are citizens and subjects

but this is it's something superficial

the Queen can't just arbitrarily send

you off to the prison and we should be

wary of some of these laws being passed

because they're against the essential

nature of this country and we have to

remind the English you're the people of

the Magna Carta you're the people of

habeas corpus this is your tradition you

gave this to the Western world you're

the people of John Locke you're the

people that brought these things and you

are the people of John Wesley who this

Hall is named after this glorious Hall

was named after John Wesley one of the

greatest reformers in Western

civilization who worked with William

Wilberforce and we're in the year of

William Wilberforce and I want to tell

you about William Wilberforce

this is a man who from the early 20s was

with a group in platform and I hope I

pronounced that right he was in a group

and there was an event in which a

hundred and thirty-two black Africans

were discarded thrown overboard on a

ship called the song it was a slave ship

coming from West Africa to the Americas

it was an English ship a hundred and

thirty two black people were thrown into

the ocean and drowned and this was

considered legal by the laws of the land

and these this group of young people who

still had that spark of hope recognized

how despicable this act was how

unacceptable

this act was and they started a small

group of abolitionists to end the slave

trade at a time when almost every single

member of parliament was was supported

by the slave Lobby things haven't

changed all that much but Wilberforce

did not give up he worked the day and

night he was an incredible connector he

connected with people all over the

country he got people to sign things he

brought these in as a member of

parliament he worked with beautiful

people like Hannah Moore and several

years ago I suggested to the Muslim

women in this country to start the

Hannah more benevolent society because

you should know Hannah more you should

know who Hannah Moore is she's a

beautiful English woman she was

stunningly beautiful in her looks when

she came to London she took everybody by

storm she was a playwright she was a

literary figure she was a poetess she

was all of these things but in the end

she had a spiritual conversion and she

became one of the staunchest

anti-slavery spokespeople in this

country she started night schooling this

is one of her great contributions this

is England to me England is not the

tyranny of Ireland that's the worst of

human nature that you find in every

civilization that's not England to me

England to me is these incredible ideals

embodied by people like Florence

Nightingale

I love Florence Nightingale I studied I

read all of her all these different

works she'd written I told my wife

you're the only woman I know who's

jealous of a woman that died over a

hundred years ago I fell in love with

Florence Nightingale Florence

Nightingale said England needs to go to

the sufis this is she wrote this in her

book she said England needs to go to the

sufis and Florence Nightingale entered

the soap on Hassan mosque where our

Grand Mufti gives the hot bath and she

said for the first time she's fishy

found what she was looking for she said

I never found this in the Church of the

baby

she said I found equality and I said Oh

what that there was a place for women in

this religion you know they chased her

out with a stick and she said I don't

blame them she went to a louse hog

she was struck by the spirituality and

she says in her diary she said I've

heard in my heart something telling me

turn to Mecca face Mecca face Mecca all

of humanity is one we are all under one

God and there is salvation for all of us

I kept hearing in my heart there is no

god but God believe in the one true God

she was a Unitarian she was not a

Trinitarian this is Florence Nightingale

one of the great icons of the British

people and she saw the beauty of Islam

this is a woman who was given a colada

this extraordinary medal by the sofa and

I've got a Majeed of the Ottoman Empire

because she came and served the Turkish

soldiers that were victims of the

Crimean War as well as she served the

British soldiers because she didn't

different

she didn't differentiate between people

this is England to me this is the

England I want to see this is the

England I want to remind these people of

who they are they forgotten who they are

these are the people of the great

reforms of Western civilization and we

of all people should be reminding them

we share these things with you you've

forgotten who you are like we've

forgotten who we are this is the age of

senility we're all in spiritual dementia

really were in spiritual dementia this

is this is the old age the dotage of of

humanity and we need reminders we've got

collective Alzheimer's disease and some

of us has some timers disease we forget

and then we remember this is England to

me and and it flows in my blood

I have ancestors from this land this is

my home yeah call me this is what every

prophet said to his people all my people

weren't they weren't following his way

they were fighting him they were

opposing him yeah call me in the aerosol

by alaykoum yeah call me might be a

surfer huh

no I'm not stupid he didn't say been

entombed sofa ha I'm cuckoo far I'm too

mafia and to Mihama a doctor oniy he

didn't say this might be a thief aha no

you're wrong I want good for you in

order to Allah is raha mr. fats you know

I just want to help as much as I'm able

to this this is this is our teaching to

go out and to engage these people and I

want to end because it's been a long

night and you have somebody's I was on

an airplane and this man came up to me

he said he said brother

you know I loved your work and I was

like mashallah thank you so much he said

no no really it's just so I mean it was

it's just so amazing what you did it was

incredible and this but let me ask you

one question I said sure so why did you

give up singing

so after I sang in a few bars of peace

train one of my favorite song I told him

I lost my voice now I said I said that's

use of Islam use we have the same

there's three uses tonight it's use of

Moe cab you know use of to the third

power so but I want to end with a story

about one of my favorite people and this

is who can tell me not from the ulama

but who can tell me who say now Omar's

favorite poet was people say say no more

like poetry didn't he just listen to the

Quran the favorite poet of Umar ibn

al-khattab was zuhayr IBN abas ummah

Zuhair even a Bissell man who is Zuhair

even a besom he's the father of cab even

Zuhair the man who wrote the border he's

the father of also his younger brother

Cobbs younger brother who became Muslim

before zu head before cam so hair did

not meet the Prophet he died one year

before but I want to tell you a little

bit about why Zuhair wrote is Malacca

and then I'm done and I want to use this

as a metaphor for what we need to do

there is a war the Arabs called

something I am and out of a youngin out

of our the days of the Arabs that's why

a lot changed I am it out of - I am ela

well they killed whom bi yeah Mila

because the Arabs had their days Allah

has his days the days of the Arabs were

momentous things that happened to them

they say a shepherd would be wanted out

of them they used to write their history

in their poetry there was a war called

Haru budahas how about that has you know

who dad has is it's amazing we know his

name yeah this was a horse it's called

the war of - the horse and and that his

was owned by a man who was so hair even

apace and I'm see he owned a horse

called Deus he had a friend who was from

the DPN tribe who they thought bin Malik

he had a horse called a bra

now who they felt was very jealous of

datas the horse of kudzu hair so he

asked him to race so he asked him to

race so the two horses they decided they

raised a hundred arrow shots they shoot

one time two time for a hundred times

and then they race well the horses

started out and Habra was winning but

once it got into the heavy sand

Dacus took the lead well there was a

group of the beyond the beyond Knights

who were hiding in ambush and they

ambushed - and stopped him from winning

the race so Habra won so what was the

bet a hundred camels so they first said

give me a hundred camels because you

lost and then the people told him no we

saw the ambush he didn't lose you lost

you cheated give us 100 camels they kept

on and on and on finally johanna even

apace got so angry he killed the brother

of Hadassah he threw a spear at him

killed him that started the war between

ABS and Vivian you know how long that

war lasted forty years over a stupid

horse race

forty years that's how long the war

lasted now what happened was and this is

a very interesting story much later

after many many people were killed from

- to the point where Zuhair even a pace

you know what he ended up doing he went

to a man became a Christian and spent

the last days of his life weeping over

the war he started because he said he

could never look at anybody from his

tribe because he'd caused so much

suffering and bloodshed amongst these

people so what happens there's a man and

a hadith an obscene how does he been out

this man he asked his cousin Khadijah

Vinson and he asked him which tent of

the Arabs do you think would not let me

marry his daughter and he said

definitely ossify he'd never let you

marry his daughter so what's he do this

is typical male problem he gets on his

camel and he heads for this guy's tent

to ask for his daughter

of all the

the thing that he can't get that's the

thing he wants this is the human problem

so he gets there and this man house

comes out and he says I'm so behind I'm

so bottom good morning good morning he

said what are you doing up here yeah say

that I don't he said I want to marry

your daughter he said get the hell out

of here I mean really that's pretty much

what he said this made out how did

furious he takes off with his cousin and

they're leaving so what does house do he

goes into the house his wife says what

happened what just happened who was that

he said it was it was a hadith then I'll

say that I don't and he said what did he

want he wanted to marry one of my

daughters

she said if he's the say that out of why

didn't you marry one of the daughters to

him and he said that's a good point it's

just he got me off guard and I was angry

and she said well go make amends he said

I can't what's done is done

she said what do you mean what's done is

done you mess everything up and then

you're not going to go fix it go out

there and he says what do I say he said

just tell him you got him in a bad mood

and and tell him come back and we'll

work things out so he goes and out how

did the initial he's angry he comes

what's he do he says I want you to

choose one of my daughters I have three

daughters the first one comes out she

says I don't want to marry him

this is right Arab women had no rights

she said I don't want to marry him he

says why not she's first of all I'm not

that good-looking I'm not his cousin and

I'm and he's going to take me far away

and he'll grow tired of me divorce me

and then what so he says good point

bring the second daughter she comes I

want you to marry this man what do you

say look my first sister is better

looking than I am and I don't have any

talents and I don't want to go far away

from you because who's going to protect

me if he gets feisty with me good point

finally the hope is on the last daughter

the little one her name bahasa she comes

in and he says listen that hadith wants

to marry you

what do you say she said well give him

that I'm the most attractive of my

sisters

I'm extremely talented and I have a most

distinguished father I don't see how he

could refuse me and then if he treats me

badly God will definitely let him have

it

so she said he says great he tells her

they get married as they're moving out

they set up a tent next to the house he

goes in to consummate the marriage and

that's a nice word for things people do

on their wedding night so when she gets

in there when he gets in there she says

what kind of a woman do you take me for

we're right next to my father and my

brothers No let's go so they get on

they're driving a little ways out

they're always out he tells his cousin

listen you go up ahead and I'll catch up

with you later

fine he stops by the sets up to 10:00

and she says what kind of woman do you

think I mean this is the way people that

take women in wars behave take me to

your home slaughter sheep make a big

festival and he thinks this is a

high-minded woman so he takes her and

then his cousin says hey listen did you

do what you wanted to do and he said no

and he explains them and so they get

back he does a big festival when it's

all done he comes in how's things now

she said I want to ask you one question

what kind of a man are you because I

thought you are a man of honor but I

want to ask you one question

how is it that you can delight in women

when there are people Arabs right now

killing each other over a horse race she

said go out if you want me as a wife go

out and spread peace amongst these men

and end this bloodshed and so he goes

out this tells his cousin and he says

this is a high-minded woman and she will

give you great sons so let us go out and

do this they went out and they

determined the Absinthe Viviane agreed

that if they would count all of the dead

whoever had the most killed they would

pay

camels blood rit these two men from

their own wealth three thousand camels

to end this war and this is when Zuhair

wrote his Maranatha in praise of these

two men for what they did but I think

it's body said that he should have

written a waterpot about because that is

where it has to come from it's the women

in our homes they're the ones that can

change this situation more than anybody

else

our women need to to be like Malaysia

and get our men squared away and I

really mean that

you are the vice-chair of God and

extremism is here to stay folks this is

the most extreme Society and I'm talking

about the whole globe right now we're in

the most extreme conditions in human

history we've got extreme eating you

know what we drink now for a in my when

I grew up small was like this medium was

like that large right now the that's

medium they caught a big gulp that's

extreme eating the plates they give

really in restaurants it's enough I used

to eat we remember we used to have ten

people around a plate like that and

they're all walking around they can't

even control themselves anymore

seriously they're having to take out

Victorian seats in the theatres of

England because the American fat behinds

can't fit in them anymore

this is the reality of art really were

extreme we're eating extreme

we're extra look at the extreme sports

in this country you know what Skyy says

you know sky Sky television

it says if your religion is football

then worship with us you know they call

us idiots because our community killed

people over what somebody said about the

Prophet Mohammad's a lie Sam they kill

each other because some football team

beat another football team seriously

these are sofa ha everywhere but what

really what is more stupid to kill over

a stupid football game or to kill

because the greatest person in your life

has been desecrated denigrated they're

both wrong but don't call our people

fools and not call your own people fools

seriously this is extremism in its worst

qualities they have look at the

pornography that they have the

denigration of these poor women you know

the word in Arabic for oppression is

related to the word for prostitute

because processes are the most oppressed

human beings on the planet and there's

sexual slavery all over this planet and

some of the biggest downloaded things on

the Google search engine according to

their own statistics the pornography is

in Muslim countries so what's happened

to people really think about this

we're in extreme conditions we have to

we have to we need the admonition from

our nuts this is real you know the Arabs

say horrible abdomen well I'm sure my

gonna you know that this the the free

man is a slave as long as he desires

other than God and the slave is a free

man as long as he's content this is real

abolition this is what William

Wilberforce his movement needs to be

resurrected but we need liberation from

our own egos Jews Nakamura ma Ferran

it's been an honor

I love you I love this country I want to

see good for this country really and

this government there's there's there's

much to say about the the bad things of

this government and and you know my

criticism I'm against the war in Iran I

want the war to end

I want these British troops home I don't

want them over there I don't want the

American troops over there I am against

this I have always been against it

really I'm completely against it on both

sides

they're both unacceptable it's terrorism

on both sides

they're both terroristic conditions

you're terrorizing people in their homes

really using cluster bombs in Lebanon

this is terrorism and it needs to be

condemned as terrorism and I condemn it

I condemn it really we all condemn it

all of these people condemn it so we

need to recognize that but this this

government has much good in it and and

and our teachers teach us in quinta

phenom it infer AHA in and morality to

zero now if you're in a blessing watch

out you better guard it because once you

lose it it's gone and disobedience is

what causes it to be lost and the Arabs

say that Allah subhana WA Ta'ala he said

that which Dan and Aaron right

Itamar aretha you know an interim if you

don't recognize them then then and now

you are fo kabhi ha you know losing your

blessings is what teaches you your

blessings so before you lose them count

your blessings winter doing a mala net

so ha the sacrum about her and we'll sit

on my little marshmallow