 In my lecture yesterday we talked about the problems and dangers posed by discursive imperialism, a discourse which, according to Edward Said, attempts to define our terminology and tell our narrative in this case as Muslims living in the West. So here's the bottom line. If the West really wants to understand Islam, and when I say the West I'm not just talking about non-Muslims living in the West. The West and Islam is not an absolute economy. We have to stop being so binary. We are the West. One of my teachers is an American convert. He was in a Starbucks and he was wearing a kufi and a man in front of him turned around and said, are you wearing that thing on your head? These are a mausoleum? And he said, yes. The man said, you're a traitor. He walked up. And so when is Muslim the opposite of American? What is an American? What is a Muslim? If the West really wants to understand this deen, this way of being in the world, then it must, we must, equate ourselves. We must equate ourselves with our Master Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. If you don't know the prophet, then you don't know the Islamic tradition. That's the bottom line. If you don't know the prophet, you don't know the Quran. And anti-Muslim bigots, they know this really well. You can call them Islamophobes if you like. They know this well. That's why they're constantly trying to assassinate the prophet's character, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. It's an age old tactic, strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter. And if you knew the prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, you would know that his message is universal. He said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, I'm the master of the children of Adam and I do not boast. He's a messenger of everyone. He said, there is nothing in the heavens and the earth that does not know I'm the messenger of God except the rebels from the jinn and ins. And oftentimes this cosmopolitan aspect of his message is misrepresented and termed as Islam's global agenda. This is to create fear. Who threatens you with fear according to the Quran is Satan. That's from Satan. So this rhetoric of Muslims are going to take over the planet. It's going to be planet of the apes. They're secretly planning on usurping power from Western nations. Makes for a good mini-series on Fox, I guess. We're talking about this yesterday, the effective media pedagogy. If television is your main source of religious education then you have a problem and you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself. I promised a brother yesterday I'd quote Ice Cube again in my talk so I had to do it early, get it out of the way. The Muslims, you know, we're not the ones meeting once a year at the Bohemian Grove, the L'Berge Hotel. We meet at at risk here and our doors are open. We have nothing to hide. It's complete transparency. We say marhaban ahlan musahlan. You don't need a trust fund. You just need an open heart and an open mind and if they weren't so loud outside I'd actually invite the Christians inside and listen but mashallah the man has a voice like a megaphone so I don't know if it's going to be prudent at this juncture. I made a mistake one time of actually approaching one of these hardcore evangelical Christians. It was at a church one time and we were having an interfaith dialogue and when I walked out a group of them kind of just ambushed me right but I approached one of them and she said you know as a woman so I thought you'd be more reasonable and so she says your prophet went into Europe and slaughtered all of the Europeans. Wow I don't know who you think my prophet is, Napoleon or someone. To know it's very well documented I said oh he never left the Arabian Peninsula in the 23 years of his prophecy and then she proceeded to quote a verse to me from the Quran that ostensibly or apparently advocates violence so I quoted a verse to her from the Bible which apparently advocates violence out of context right in order to demonstrate her erroneous methodology so I quoted from Luke chapter 19 verse 27 in which Jesus has reported to us that those enemies that do not accept me as their king bring them hither and slay them before me right and another translation cut their throats in my very presence and I expected her to say well you're not looking at the context right and then I would say of course that was my point but she didn't say that he said that verse is nowhere in my Bible so I said can I see your Bible and then I just kind of flipped it open and it was right there and she closed the book and she looked at me looked down back at the Bible looked at me again and said I know who you are satan sometimes you have to put the fun and fundamentalism Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala describes the universal aspect of the prophet's message when he says global mercy not domination arts and minds not lands and resources universal in the sense that this tradition recognizes and accepts our distinctiveness with respect to ethnicity country culture language clan tribe yet also transcends these designations and uh distinctions by offering us a unifying spiritual identity called muslim and there's no country called islamistan right I assure you there's no christendom either right I can't tell you how many times I've been asked are you islam or are you from islam so what is a muslim a follower of muhammad sallallahu alaihi sallam but he himself was a muslim so how do we deal with that the quran says that the sons of jayka the bani israel they were muslim the quran says that the disciples of isa alayhi sallam were muslim this is a transcendental spiritual identity so here's what i'm saying there's always going to be a level of hybridity in our identities we're all hybrids and we should embrace that don't fight it embrace it don't think that you have to put yourself into a box am i afghan or american am i indian or canadian am i muslim or american no we should forsake this black and white binary framework we find it annoying when people do do it to us why did we do it to ourselves our sisters know about this people slowing down their speech because they assume you're an idiot because you wear a hijab or you don't understand english right it's very annoying all right or they're you know someone's forcing you so they they have they have pity for you some some husband some father some brother is forcing you because no one in the right mind would wear hijab right so they're trying to fit you nicely inside of a box but you're not so easily definable you're highly nuanced and most non-muslims as well we have to be careful in our interactions with people zayno al abedin said that Allah has hidden his awliya amongst his creation not in muslimin or beina muslimin in his creation Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has hid or concealed his his friends his awliya so we have to be very vigilant as to how we interact with people whether they're muslim or not this is common sense so embrace your hybridity explore it there's nothing wrong with being hyphenated you can be a muslim hyphen american or a american hyphen muslim wherever you want to put your emphasis and what does it mean to give precedence to your faith over your country what does that entail is that a bad thing i asked five christian professors at a christian seminary i said which of these two takes precedence in your life the fact that you're american or the fact that you're christian which takes precedence and five out of five times with no hesitation they said the fact that i'm christian it's obvious and what's wrong with that nothing because they know that their national identity their nationalism will ultimately die with their bodies right but the soul will endure the angels in your grave will not ask you whether you're from the east or the west whether you were a democrat or republican whether you prefer coke or pepsi or whether you're on team jacob or team whatever i don't i don't even know i just expose myself some of these designations are important for the dunya but ultimately they will die with your body man the rubbuka who is your lord what madinuka what is your religion nabiyuka who is your prophet that's it embrace your hybridity but know but know that that above all you are a muslim i am an iranian born american sunni muslim anafi ashari who strongest english who strongest language is english anyone else i'm usually the only one in the room wallahi i've never had because i've heard a lot of theories out there is he half jewish he's a curd wallahi i've never had an identity crisis you wanted to find me you could just call me muslim so let's look at some of the best of exemplars the prophet musa aley salam he was an israelite from bani israel that was his ethnic distinction in exodus chapter six we are told that he's from the banei levi which means a levite that was his tribal distinction he was born in mitzrayim or miso in egypt that's his national distinction he spoke ancient egyptian and ancient hebru that's his linguistic distinction his wife was zippora the daughter of a medianite priests so his children were half arab look at the hybridity look at the diversity but what was his spiritual distinction his spiritual distinction what was his transcendental identity right i hope i don't offend anyone with this but if we can travel back in time 1400 years before the common era some 3400 years ago and we can ask the prophet musa aley salam if i asked him are you a jew he would say no i'm a levite because in his day the word jew meant a descendant of yehuda of juda like david was from juda but moses is from levite in other words he would think that i was referring to a tribal distinction not the name of a faith if i asked him are you a practitioner of judaism he would not know what i was talking about because this word judaism as a concept wasn't coined until the eighth century before the common era after the assyrians tacked the norther kingdom of israel in 722 and apparently 10 of the 12 tribes were wiped out the only two tribes that remained were benjamin and juda and juda is the older brother so they call themselves the jews our contention is that the spiritual identity the spiritual identity of the prophet musa aley salam was muslim one who peacefully submitted to god the word muslim is transcendental right it's it's an anachronistic to call musa aley salam a jew uh the prophet isa aley salam jesus christ who was born in bayt lechem in judia the roman occupation he was raised in uh galilee nazareth um in northern palestine he spoke syriac which is the language that the israelites adopted when they were in captivity in babalon he also spoke hebru the language of the synagogue liturgy and probably spoke koine greek which was the language of the roman occupiers so there's a lot of hybridity now obviously the prophet jesus wasn't a christian the book of axe tells us that believers in jesus were first called christian when they were being expelled from the synagogues in anioc it was originally a derogatory term the earliest somatic christians call themselves nazarians or evionine right and they considered themselves actually a sect of judaism our contention is that his spiritual identity the spiritual identity which is overriding everything was muslim and he says in the beatitudes in his mother tongue and this is obviously from a fourth century um uh translation of the greek manuscripts called the peshita and his mother tongue he says blessed are those who make peace if you were to translate that into hebu it would be blessed are the meshalimim which is the exact cognate of the word muslim in the accusative case in judaism the nasab or the lineage is taken from the mother it's matrilineal and all of the tribe except for one a tribe of levi and mariam is uftaharun she's a leviate she's the descendant of of erin of harun alayhi salam right he was the first high priest the gospel of luke also says that she was a leviate so in that tribe tribal distinction is taken from the father only in that tribe so issa alayhi salam's tribal distinction would be whatever his father's was but issa alayhi salam doesn't have a father therefore issa alayhi salam you think about it it's not really from bani israel or rasool al ila bani israel he was a messenger sent to the children of israel this is why he's never quoted in the quran is saying ya qomi like every other prophet says oh my people because their father is from that people but issa alayhi salam says ya bani israel so usually when i make this next comment and there's a mixed crowd of christians and jews and whatnot i say hold on to your hats and your hijabs and your hairpieces when i tell you that issa alayhi salam jesus christ peace be upon him was essentially a muslim and in the nation of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam he was from a tribe called koreish this clan was bani hasheb spoke arabic but he was in reality a citizen of the world and i believe that he advocated what philosophers today call a rooted cosmopolitanism in other words to act locally but think globally to think of something outside of yourself like when he said seek knowledge even to china sticking outside the box but many of us will say you know i don't i don't want to look weird weird and the kufi and hijab is it just seems weird to me you know it's weird to me when i was in junior high there was a fat apparently a trend where you would wear clothes backwards you guys remember that i guess there were some guys some artists who were doing that were their clothes backwards that seems really weird you know i don't know if i'm coming or going i guess i don't know or wearing jeans so tight that you can tell if a quarter in your back pocket is heads or tails this young brother who's you know 18 19 years old he uh he started growing his beard and he came to me and he was in tears and he said you know my friends at school they made fun of me and so on and so forth i said you know brother one day you're going to look back at this and you're going to laugh i'm laughing at you already you have to put some humor into it so weird is actually a matter of perspective i mean there are christians in the muslim world you go to some churches in the muslim world you're thinking walking into a muslim you see people standing and bowing and prostrating they're reciting litanies in arabic you take some of those christians that are in contemporary middle east and you bring them into like a joe austin convention at the staple center you know this idea of the prosperity gospel and those christians will say this is so weird what are they doing here what are they talking about and those are also christians so it's not a muslim christian thing it's this postmodern opulent lifestyle thing that's weird the people of faith being weird to the postmodern world is actually a good thing and i'll end with this the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in nadina badaa ghariban this religion began as something strange as something weird saya udu kama badaa and then it'll it'll return to be something strange batuba lil ghorabah we're glad tidings to the strangers we're glad tidings to the weirdos so it's loving allah and his messenger is weird and i don't want to be normal