Islam is the Target | Sayyid Hashim Al-Haidari - Arabic sub English Video - Pure Stream - ShiaTV.net

Islam is the Target | Sayyid Hashim Al-Haidari - Arabic sub English Video - Pure Stream - ShiaTV.net

Dear Racists: Islam and and Tribalism, Nationalism and Racism is NOT compatible with Islam.

Dear Racists: Islam and and Tribalism, Nationalism and Racism is NOT compatible with Islam. 

Today, I observed for the hundredth time a reminder that true Islam is rare these days. I am not talking ISIS, Daesh, and the other unnamed hijackers.  I am talking to you “Aunty” and “Uncle” whose words are like knives laced with poison when you secluded, exclude and judge.  Allah did not appoint one ethnic group over another and its time to come clean.  My sisters and brothers in Islam are being oppressed by you! Yes, you! You, who claim to love the Prophet Muhammad, and even those who dare say they love the Ahlul bayt as well.  

Your words echo in my head like a broken record, “You should marry your own kind”, “Muslims do things this way”, “You should change your name”, “Shall I introduce you to the other: ___________ (white, black, revert, American, fill in the blank), “I didn’t know you were black”, “Wow, its amazing that you know XYZ about Islam?, etc…

How can a person truly humble his or herself before their Lord with hate in their hearts?  Make no mistake about it, racism is hate.  I used to question the legitimacy of any organization that openly professed hate and yet I regularly find myself surrounded by members of one.  This organization is not Islam nor it is the brotherhood and sisterhood of believers that Prophet Muhammad taught us to strive to build. 

I live in a town with a small mixed Muslim community a community in which Alhamdulillah I have felt kindness and pockets of welcome. The sad reality is that this community is still a microcosm of the greater disease spreading like wildfire in the Muslim communities all over the world.  I see women gathered together by country and language of origin. I see people introducing the converts only to other converts.  I have even witnessed the revert unicorn.  When an American person successfully marries into another ethnic group and seemingly loses his or her (most often her) identity by adopting the dress and affiliations of that ethnic group and rejecting any associations with any other ethnic groups, including their own.   All of this I have seen after this community experienced the devastation of a horrible tornado and the burning down of their masjid by and American soldier returning from the so-called war on terror.  When and under what circumstances will you wake up.  From when will the veil be torn from your eyes?

I support talking about this and not around this subject that seems to be not being addressed.  How are we preparing for our Imam (ajf) who will deliver all mankind from oppression and we observe, participate or acknowledge without confronting the oppression within our communities?  Everyday I live Islam (my shortcomings and all) and I face the challenges of this world, but I am tired of this record repeating and its not without consequences or casualties.  It is reported that when Prophet (s) was asked: “O Prophet of God! What is “asabiyyah ?”, He (s) replied: “That you support your nation (or tribe) in oppression.” [Abu Dawood, Sunan, hadith # 5119] 

Think and reflect…. Are you standing and daring to cry out to Allah, “How dare an abed stand upon the Kaaba and call the adhan?” Would Bilal have a place in your home, married to your daughter?

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

― Malcolm X

Thanksgiving in Context: Seeking out and Honoring Native American Roots as Posted on Sapelo Square

As salamu alaikum wa rahmatulahi wa barakatu,

  InshAllah this finds you well and the best of health and iman.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I have recently began co-editing the history section the African American Muslim blog Sapelo Square and I just posted an article about Seeking out and Honoring Native American Roots this Thanksgiving.

They are always looking for contributions to the site so check on the About US page to email the site editor.

The Biggest Challenge for the Shiite... A reminder in Muharram

Bismilahir Rahmanir Rahim,
As salamu alaikum,
  I can't stress how important I think Sheikh Usama AbdulGhani's entire lecture series from the first ten days of Muharram is, but I am highlighting lecture 10 when he addresses one of the biggest challenges facing the Shiite ummah in 2015.  Its not a surprise to me, but racism (nay asabiyyah) is one of the biggest, if not the biggest challenge facing the ummah.  I have posted this lecture below, but I have also provided the link to full lecture series on  Shiatv.net.

The full series can be accessed here: http://www.shiatv.net/uprofile.php?U=AshuraDearborn

Mourning in Muharram...reflections from Karbala

As salamu alaikum wa rahmatulahi wa barakatu,
  InshAllah this finds you well and the best of health and iman.  After some time and self-reflection I am returning to this blog.  Inshallah I am to be a vessel or tool for Allah in these troubling times to shed light on issues in the ummah and to share knowledge.

 In a world where black lives matter is no longer just a mantra you repeat to yourself in the mirror before facing the reality of a not-so-post-racial world, Muharram returns. Every Muharram since 2009, when I was blessed to walk the dusty streets of Karbala, Iraq, I return to my thoughts about what real Islam teaches us about the value of human lives.  I emphasize real Islam as the media is bombarding the word with ISIS-laced perversions of Islam everyday.  There is no more palpable reminder of the value of life than death and nowhere in history do we find a tragic depiction of the complete disregard for the value of life and adil (Allah’s divine justice) than in the story of Husayn, grandson of Prophet Muhammad, and the slaughtering of him and 72 of his companions and relatives; the youngest of which was his six-month old son, Ali Asghar.  I am reminded of meeting Media and Religious studies professor Stewart Hoover who commented, “I wonder why more African Americans don’t become Shia Muslims, as it is truly a religion for the oppressed.”  Since that day, I have posited many explanations, most often defaulting to the devastating consequences of limited English resources or the uncomfortable lack of diversity in immigrant-led Shia communities.  But I digress.

Outsiders, whose knowledge of Shia Islam typically constitutes whatever propaganda Google box, mainstream media, or misinformed or ill-intentioned compatriots have shared often pose the question of why Shia’s mourn in Muharram? I counter, why aren’t all Muslims mourning? The grandson of the Holy Prophet of Islam was brutally murdered and decapitated on the hot desert sands of Karbala after watching his family and companions deprived of water and killed either in front of him or in his arms. 

When I think of the battle at Karbala, I remember how before even reaching the city limits my throat tightened with an unimaginable thirst, my nose was filled with the bittersweet smell of pre-storm summer air and my bloodshot eyes welled with tears.   I think of the countless reasons why I remember.

Why are the events of Karbala retold every year, because of the lessons that they contain for all humanity.  When I look at my African American children I am reminded of how blessed I am that although I dare to strive in the way of Allah I am not under direct threat of losing them by the piercing arrows of the army of Yazid, but instead reminded that I can not let my guard down because the Yazids of this world still threaten the haqq (truth) of Allah.  When I pin my hijab tightly around my face before stepping out into the world, the battle of Karbala reminds me of the sacrifices of the family of Prophet Muhammad whose women were mistreated and stripped of their hijabs and paraded around the hot desert. I think to myself about how blessed I am that Husayn’s sister Zainab endured this horrible treatment and spoke out about her oppressors and reminded us all to not stand silent in the face of oppression.  Not to stand silent in the face of oppression. As Muslims who fast in the month of Ramadhan we know something of thirst, but the battle of Karbala reminds me of what torture and unimaginable thirst the family of Prophet Muhammad and their companions endured as a result of being cut off from all water.  The efforts of Abbas ibn Ali at Karbala remind me of what real familial devotion is as he earnestly and repeatedly risked his life, and ultimately brutally lost it, in order to attempt to secure drinking water for the women and children in his family and camp crying out for water. I think of Hurr, the Umayyad general who was responsible for holding Husayn, his family and companions captive and how even after the horrible atrocities that occurred as a result of his leadership, he was able to reflect, repent and join Husayn in fighting the tyrant Yazid.  Instead of ending the life of his enemy, Husayn instead welcomed Hurr like a brother and even discouraged him from going into battle.  It is reported that Husayn said, “The most merciful person is the one who forgives when he is able to take revenge.” Husayn bravely faced adversity to protect Islam as Allah had established it through his grandfather Muhammad. Husayn faced down 30,000 soldiers to stand up for truth and justice.  When I make salah five times a day, I remember how Husayn observed his prayers on time on the battlefield at Karbala. When modern life is full of so many non-life threatening distractions Husayn serves to remind us all of what true obedience to Allah really means. 

There are so many more lessons from the battle of Karbala that I think about not just in the first 10 days of Muharram as they are historically memorialized.  Beyond, Ashura I think about what my Karbala is in 2015.  How can I embody the lessons of Husayn and the battle of Karbala in my daily life in the face of mounting oppression?  How can any one live in the way of Allah without preparing to die in the way of Allah.  It is for this reason that I commit to remember Husayn in his own words, “When the truth becomes alone, alone and sad”.  Condolences on the loss of Allah's precious servants and our beloved Imam (a.s.).   

If you are unfamiliar with the events at Karbala I highly encourage you to seek knowledge from legitimate sources and learn for yourself why the battle of Karbala and the first ten days of Muharram are somberly remembered every year.

Some links of interest:

http://www.ashuradearborn.com/

http://whoishussain.org/

The Tribe of Ben Ishmael

• Founded by Ben & Jennie Ishmael
• A group of freed and escaped slaves, poor white indentured servants and Native Americans
• Originated in Noble County, Kentucky (Now Bourbon County)
• Later migrated to Indianapolis, Indiana then to Cincinnati, Ohio
• It would be Ben and Jennie’s eldest son John who would ultimately move the tribe to Indiana.  It is rumored that Ben and Jennie retired to the wilderness before their deaths.  
• Practiced a nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle influenced by the local Pawnee Indians
• Believed that land could not be owned and that property should be moveable. (They constructed movable houses)

Scholars debate the role Islam may have played on influencing this group, but I believe that the evidence, albeit lacking in specific admissions of Islamic identity seem interesting enough for discussion.  This group utilized a restricted practice of polygyny, did not affiliate with any known church, abstained from alcohol and travelled nomadically between 3 cities with Islamic names.  I share the story of this group to inspire us all to research our ancestors so that we can fill in the gaps in our own history as well as American history.  There are persons who outright deny the possibility of Islamic/Semitic/Arabic influence on any persons or aspects of the history of America and that is just not possible. The magnitude of influence is really the only question, but without scholarly research and us researching our own family histories and stories  

They lived far from settled communities and were forced out of inhabited lands.  When Kentucky farmlands became slave-farms, they moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. From Cincinnati they were driven out, tracing a settlement pattern through Indiana and finally to various small towns in Illinois (mostly southern parts). Cities like Mahomet, Mecca, Morocco and Cairo bear the names of some of these settlements.  Several years ago KET public television produced a special on Melungeon descendants. Interestingly, but not surprisingly many people were disturbed to discover that they had African ancestors.  They special can be watched online here: http://www.ket.org/kentuckylife/400s/kylife416.html

This is a map of the their annual migratory route

The Tribe of Ben Ishmael is even mentioned in Fenimore Cooper’s 1872 novel The Prairie as the family of a man called Ishmael Bush [though the tribe is “mostly” white in the book].

“Their origins are inexact, but they are said to have been fugitives from slavery and the “Indian Wars” from various points in Tennessee, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland, all seeking asylum and converging in Kentucky.  Such as explanation suggests that they did not represent splintering branches of previously formed transracial groups in the Southeast (such as the Melungeons), but that the community as a transracial, transcultural project developed in Kentucky itself.”  (196)

“When Noble Drew Ali left Newark for Chicago in 1925 he gave as his reason the opinion that the Midwest was ‘closer to Islam.’ He might have been referring to the “Egyptian” Shriners- but he also might have meant the Ishmaels or both.  An Ishmael woman with the delightful nomadic name Mrs. Gallivant passed down a tradition that Ishmaelites were among Drew Ali’s first converts in the area.”  (29)

Nobel Drew Ali is the founder of the Moorish Science Temple of America.  If you are unfamiliar with the Moorish Science Temple it is an Islamically-influenced movement that became popular in the mid to late 1900s in America.  

No matter what the extent of their Islamic influence there are historical references to the Tribe of Ben Ishmael even though it lacks a detailed documented history.  Almost all historical references to this group disappear around the same time that forced sterilization laws went into effect in Indiana in 1907 for the “degenerates of society”.  Oscar Carleton McCulloch 1843-1891, a pro-Eugenics supporter wrote a pamphlet on the Tribe that suggested forcible sterilization and incarceration for their members. The pamphlet, published in 1880, was only the second in the United States applying Eugenic science on a population.

Works cited and consulted:

Deutsch, Nathaniel. Inventing America's "worst" Family: Eugenics, Islam, and the Fall and Rise of the Tribe of Ishmael. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

Gomez, Michael A. Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

McCulloch, Oscar C. The Tribe of Ishmael: A Study in Social Degradation. Indianapolis: Charity Organization Society, 1889.

Sakolsky, Ronald B, and James Koehnline. Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture. New York: Autonomedia, 1993.
Wilson, Peter L. Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1993.