 Hello, Highline. My name is Fuzi Bilal. I am the Associate Director of Outreach Services. I'm here to introduce our guest today. We're happy to have Imam Dr. Yasser Qadi with us today. He is a well-known scholar in the Muslim community. He served as a Dean of Academic Affairs at the Almagreb Institute in Houston, Texas. He's also a former faculty and professor for several colleges. Dr. Yasser is a resident scholar at East Planto Islamic Center. If I'm correct, he will be addressing the impact of war on society, highlighting Islamophobia and stereotypes of violence. Welcome, Dr. Yasser. We're happy to have you. Thank you for being here. Welcome for having me. I'm very honored. It's East Plano, not Planto, but that's okay. Okay. So should I begin? Yes, please. Okay. So first and foremost, may the peace and blessings of God Almighty be upon all of those who are following the guidance. And I ask God to bless us on this auspicious day. This is a happy day, an inauguration day. And I'm actually surprised that so many of you are attending this talk rather than watching what's going on in DC. But nonetheless, I hope and pray that this talk will be of some benefit. It is an auspicious day for all of us. I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief. I think I speak on behalf of almost everybody really that's going to be attending today that we're back to the normalcy of our standard problems with our current administration, having seen four years of very interesting, very erratic and very unpredictable reality. So let's hope that the next four years and especially the pandemic are quelled given the current administration. So today's talk is actually pretty deep. It's pretty relevant to MLK because Martin Luther King famously remarked in one of the last speeches that he ever gave that he said and I quote that we now see that the evils of racism and economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together. He mentioned three evils, racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together. And he then went on and said the evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and the evils of racism. You cannot really get rid of one without getting rid of the others. The whole structure of American life must be changed. America, according to MLK, is a hypocritical nation and we must put our own house in order. End quote. Harsh words, some would say damning words. These are the words of somebody that obviously is speaking from a very different socioeconomic paradigm than the majority of or I should say a very large group of people of this country. And it's something for us to think about. 50 years have gone by since he said that. And today's brief talk, I'm going to contrast and compare much of what he said with sentiments from within my own faith tradition, which is the Islamic faith tradition because obviously I'm speaking to you not just as a professor, but as a Muslim cleric, as an American Muslim cleric who is very concerned with the realities of our nations and with really the exact same problems that plagued this country for the last few centuries, which were so eloquently expressed by MLK. It is truly saddening to note that the sentiments that MLK expressed are just as relevant 50 years later as they were when he expressed them. Nothing has changed. If anything, if anything, in many ways, the problem has actually become exacerbated. So here we are today taking a look back at the especially the last four, but I would say really the last 15, 20 years really, since especially the attack, the horrific attacks of 9-11, and to see the realities of what MLK said in light of what has happened in our own generations and lifetimes. So the three evils that he expressed, racism, and then economic disparity and capitalism, and then militarism. Let's summarize from our perspective, and especially the American Muslim perspective, what we can analyze with regards to the American situation and scenario. Let's begin with racism. And of course, racism is the one thing that obviously troubled Martin Luther King and many of us for most of his life and for most of our lives. The concept of racism, the notion of subjugation of one race over another, the notion of privileging one entity or one groups of people over others is something that goes back to the very beginnings of recorded human history. In fact, we do not know of any era. We do not know of any civilization that freed itself completely from the evils of racism. As early as we have recorded history and as early as we can go back even to the greatest of the philosophers, we find racism is embedded through their entire thought. Aristotle, for example, claimed that the Greek race should be free by nature. But other races, and he means here of course, you know, those of a darker complexion, were born to be slaves. This is the great Aristotle. No doubt he's a genius in some matters and affairs. And yet here he is pontificating to us and telling us that Greeks are by nature free and other races are born to be slaves. In fact, ancient Greeks viewed themselves as being inherently by birth superior to all others. And everybody else was simply called barbarian. In other words, the term barbarian was literally applied to every single other race other than their own. It wasn't one race that they called. You were either a part of their race or you were a barbarian. That was the term that was given to every other race tradition. And the Romans of course were just as guilty of this. The emperor Julian, he claimed that it was self-evident that Romans were more humane and more civilized than all other nations. In other words, the emperor is claiming you don't even need to prove this. It's obvious to anybody who examines, you know, the world that we are better, that we are more humane, that we are more civilized. And then he remarked that the Syrians are well known to be hot tempered. The Egyptians, you know, are well known to be of this nature. And he kept on listing various other races, the broad stereotypes of the generalizations. And of course, again, that type of attitude, even though it goes back 2000 years, it is still endemic amongst many, many people of our times. The irony, of course, some, not all, but some of those who converted to the early faith of Christianity, they also adopted this type of notion. And for some segments of that civilization, the Christian civilization, it was also understood that their race and their peoples were better than others. And in fact, Pope Paul III in 1537, Pope Paul proclaimed that the inhabitants of the southern continents, meaning here of course, Africa, and basically everybody, you know, south of the Mediterranean, the inhabitants of the southern continents, he issued a papal decree, by the way. And this papal decree, it legitimized the trade of slavery. Of course, the institution of slavery, of course, predates the papal decree, but the papal decree gave it the stamp of basically godly approval. So the papal decree of 1537, in which Pope Paul III proclaimed, and I quote, that the inhabitants of the southern continents should be treated like irrational animals. And they may be used exclusively for our profit, end quote. In other words, he justified the enslavement of peoples of different races and different skin colors. And he said that that's basically God's given, right? We are God's chosen people, and they are, you know, barbarians or they're irrational animals. And it is completely legit for us to do what we are doing. And we are well aware that some of the greatest, you know, philosophers of even post Reformation Europe, even post Reformation Europe, were out and out through and through racists. David Hume, considered to be one of the greatest of the Enlightenment philosophers, 1776, a person whom many of the founding fathers admired immensely. They read his works. In fact, it is even said some of them studied or met with him, right? David Hume, you know, the Scottish philosopher, he writes in one of his treatises that, and I quote, blacks are inherently inferior to whites. This is David Hume, you know, Edmund Birken in 1797. Again, considered to be of the greatest political philosophers and somebody whose political philosophy directly impacted our constitution, it is, it is correct to point out that, you know, much of our constitution and much of our division of powers, it goes back to specific figures. Edmund Birken is one of them. Edmund Birken also was a through and through racist in his writings, very clearly privileging Europeans, not just whites, by the way, Europeans, like a race, for example, not just the skin color. Perhaps one of the worst of them was Immanuel Kant. And Kant again, I mean, you cannot deny that Kant has some really intriguing, very, very deep philosophical notions. I mean, and again, I'm not taking away from the fact that he has some original contributions, obviously to philosophy. And yet, unbelievably, or maybe not so unbelievably, here he is writing that, you know, blacks are naturally defective. And they are a race that, and he, and I quote, have not made any profound and well known impact in Western history, right? They've not made any impact, like they're basically a race that has no impact in humanity, right? And so you have somebody, excuse me, you know, as profound as Kant, still through and through a complete racist. So it's not surprising therefore that, you know, our own founding fathers as well, they have these notions that privilege their race and their peoples, you know, against other civilizations, despite the fact that they wrote the constitution in which, allegedly, it says all men are created equal. We all understand Thomas Jefferson's the infamous example, who out of all of them was one of the better, one of the more enlightened minds. Thomas Jefferson, the same person who signed his name and was involved in penning the Declaration of Independence, all men are created equal, clearly didn't consider, you know, Africans to be of the same types of men that he is, or else he wouldn't write, all men are created equal. And he actually writes, as is well known, that the blacks are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind, end quote. And even Abraham Lincoln, you're all aware, was, you know, obviously he was opposed to the institution of slavery, but to be clear, he did not believe in the equality of races. It is a verified fact, a well known fact, that on multiple occasions, he even publicly said that he is not saying that whites and blacks are equally human. They're not equal. He actually believed that whites are superior to any other nation. And of course, the history of this country is well known to all of you, the prevailing attitudes of the privileging of one race over another. It's still around to this day. It's only been institutionally illegal, you know, up until from 1965, the acts that were passed. There are many people alive that witnessed and that were the subjects of, not just institutionalized, but legalized racism. In other words, mandated racial segregation was around basically until one generation ago, as we're all aware. It's not been eons ago. It's not been millennia ago. It's literally been one generation, you know, the people that our elders and, you know, on a personal anecdote, my own father came to this land in the early 60s. And of course, you know, we're coming, you know, from a place not Europe, and he's coming from India, Pakistan, and the brown skin color that he came with. I mean, you know, his stories as well of being denied service, not being able to go to a barber shop, et cetera, not having a bank account, like all of these in the 60s sitting at the back of the bus, right? My own father is telling me these stories. So it's not like something that goes, you know, generations and generations ago, we're all aware of the realities of race dynamics and how it's still endemic as a system. In fact, interestingly enough, attempts to ban globally, at least in a legal way, racism have failed miserably. After World War I, in the Treaty of Versailles, when a number of nations came together, perhaps the first time in human history, so many countries came together, some countries in particular, what we call third world countries, they attempted to put in a racial equality clause in the Treaty of Versailles. They wanted to put in the notion that all countries and all peoples and all ethnicities should be considered equal, and no distinction should be made because of race or ethnicity. And in fact, a majority of countries of the world backed this proposal, but surprise, surprise, England and America under Woodrow Wilson strongly objected and rallied support from nations like Austria and others. And because of the pressures put from these superpowers over their time, that clause was not added in the Treaty of Versailles. Dare I say, even if it had been put in, it wouldn't have changed much on the reality, but it is a symbolic victory. And of course, we're all aware of the Nazi party and the rise of blatant race politics and discrimination. What many people are not aware of is that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in general actually looked at American institutionalized racism and adopted some of the key notions that were already prevalent in America, and then of course exacerbated and built on them. And so Hitler wrote his mind camp, and in it he actually praises the United States for how it treated black people. And he mentions the treatment of Native Indians. So the notion that what we're doing in one land is not going to be taken as examples in others. The notion that our injustices are localized is simply not true. Hitler explicitly took much of what this country did as institutionalized racism and then developed it when he developed the protocols of the Nazi party. And the point of course is that we need to understand that racism is as ancient really as recorded history. Now, all of this leads us to my next point, which is that as Muslims we are legitimately very, very proud of our faith when our faith comes with very clear notions, very explicit notions of race equality. And many Muslim philosophers and thinkers remark that the explicit condemnations of racism that are found in the Quran and they're found in the teachings of the Prophet, they are pretty much unprecedented in human history. The Quran itself is very clear that, O mankind, we have created you in different races and tribes so that you may get to know one another. The best of you is the one that is the most pious amongst you. In other words, the concept of being best is not linked to one's race. This is explicit in the Quran. The best of you is the one that is the most pious, the most righteous. So in other words, your value, your worth, it comes from your character. It comes from the content of your character, as MLK said, and not from the color of your skin. This is very explicit in the Quran. And what is really interesting from the Islamic paradigm is that race equality isn't an afterthought in the tradition. Race equality does not come at the very end of the revelation of the Quran. It doesn't come as a secondary aspect of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Rather, from an Islamic perspective, I think Muslims are legitimately, they have a right to be proud here, that in a time and a culture and a place and an era and a civilization in which, once again, race was considered to be very important, the Arabs considered themselves to be better than every other race, and they prided themselves on their heritage. The Prophet Muhammad, who himself, of course, was from the elite of the Arab tribes. In fact, his tribe was the best tribe and the most holiest of tribes. And for him to then say, all tribes are equal, and in fact, Arabs and non Arabs are equal, and to explicitly say that there is no superiority of an Arab over a non Arab or a white over a black, all of you are equally from Adam, the father of the Prophet Adam. And Adam was created from clay or dust, right? So nobody should have any privilege over anybody else. And there are a number of interesting anecdotes that are mentioned in the books of the lives and the biographies of the Prophet Muhammad about how he stood by this principle, even in the face of harsh adversity. In the early phase of the religion of Islam, in the phase of Mecca, when the teachings of Islam were just being propagated, and Muslims were being tortured just like early Christianity, the same notions of the believers of being tortured by those outside of the faith. People were literally killed, literally decimated quarter, just like in early Christianity in early Islam as well. Those who believed in the one God were pulled apart, spears thrusted into them. A number of people were massacred and martyred in early Islam. And in that time frame, the most of the converts to the faith actually were people of non Arab backgrounds. And one of the most famous converts was a slave by the name of Bilal from Abyssinia, so a black slave. And this slave Bilal, he became famous across Mecca, the city of Mecca, because of his conversion and because he was tortured and he refused to give up the faith. Now it is mentioned that some of the some of the elders and the nobility of the tribe were contemplating converting to monotheism. They were contemplating it, but they had a condition. And that condition was that they would not tolerate a faith in which people of a lower class would be treated the same as them. So they made an offer and they said that we're willing to convert if whenever we come to the gatherings, whenever we come to the mosque, whenever we come to your gatherings, you eliminate, you get rid of Bilal and everybody from a foreign background, everybody that's dark skin color, make sure they're not in the room so that it should not be said that we are sitting in the same place as our former slaves. This was the condition they had, that we're willing to convert. We like the idea of monotheism. We don't want to worship idols that we carve our own hands. But this element of the faith, we don't want it. We don't want racial equality. And so some of the early converts, they jumped with joy. They said, hey, we're going to get these these these powerful people on our side. We're going to get the rich nobility. So they tried to convince the prophet. They said, you know what? I mean, I'm sure Bilal will understand that we're getting the VIP. We can just ask him to sit outside and he'll come back in later on. We're going to get somebody really great to convert. But if it means he's going have his exclusive audience, he's not going to sit next to the the the the quote unquote socioeconomically, you know, underprivileged. So what they'll understand as a response to this, and this is the really interesting point, the Quran, which is, you know, still recited to this day, these verses are still here. The Quran has revealed some very clear, very explicit verses in which God reprimands the very idea that you would do this, that God is explicitly stating in the Quran. These are verses that are still recited. You can find them in the Quran. Do not expel from your gatherings those righteous individuals that are worshiping God day and night in order to appease in order to look at the the beauty of this world, meaning those people might appear to be beautiful, but the real beautiful people are the ones worshiping God, the pious people, right? Do not expel them. The Quran once again says, if you were to expel them, then you have destroyed yourselves. This is in the Quran. You're the wrongdoers. You're the unjust if you expel them. And so when this verse came down, the Prophet stood up and he went to where Bilal was sitting and he sat down with him and he said, my Lord has commanded me to sit with you and not with those guys that want to convert. So they ended up not converting. They ended up rejecting the faith because their condition was not met. Now what is really profound for us as Muslims is that this was at a time when they would have argued we need the conversion of these elite. We need these rich and powerful people on our side, but the principles of racial equality could not be hampered. They could not be bent for the whims of the elite class. And this shows us as Muslims that as I said legitimately, I have no problem saying this is something that definitely makes me very proud of my faith and proud in a not in an arrogant manner, but proud in a manner that I'm happy. This is a faith that preaches racial equality. That to the very last speech that the Prophet ever gave is consisting of five paragraphs. Famous speech, you find it in most Muslim houses in a painting or in a wall that they'll have a nice canvas with this speech summarized. It's called the farewell speech of these five paragraphs, one entire paragraph. This is the last speech that he gave and is the speech that he gave to the largest audience in his life. One paragraph is dedicated to racial equality. And he said in that famously recorded statement, he said that there is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab of a white over a black. All of you are equal. All of you are from Adam and Adam came from dust. So there should be no superiority of one person over another, except with internal piety. And when the time came to choose the first caller to prayer, the first person who would be calling people to prayer, he chose Bilal. And this was something that the people of the land of Makkah, the pagans, those who didn't accept the faith, they found highly problematic to take Bilal, who was an African slave, and then to appoint him to be somebody who's going to climb the highest place and call the pious to the mosque. It's a very honorable position in the faith. For them, that was something that was very difficult to see, but that's not what our faith is based on. And of course, here I'm going to introduce a figure that for Americans is contemporaneous and an interesting contrast to MLK, and that is Malcolm X, right? Malcolm X and MLK, both similar timeframe, both similar goals, similar grievances, but very different methodologies on how to solve them. And I will mention here that something, this is something you should all be aware of that for the Muslim community, obviously MLK is a hero, is a legend, but Malcolm X is somebody that we claim as our own. So the impact that Malcolm has on us and the image that Malcolm, we respect MLK immensely, but I'll be honest with you, for Muslim Americans, it's really, Malcolm is the one that we have a more of an attachment to, simply because obviously, he's using the language of our faith tradition, as you know, he converted to Islam, and he's using our faith tradition. And in fact, he explicitly remarked, before he passed away by a few months, you know, Malcolm literally said that America needs to understand the religion of Islam, because it is the only religion that will help them battle racism. If they don't accept, you know, the teachings of Islam, I can't see how else they're going to battle racism. And he himself went through a number of phases, and the very last phase of his life, a year before he passed away, he embraced, you know, mainstream Islam when he went on to the pilgrimage, and that's when he wrote these words, or sorry, he spoke these words in an interview where he praised the notion of racial equality in Islam. So that's one aspect, and that is the notion of racism. I have to do three aspects regarding MLK's three evils. So let's now move on to the next evil that MLK mentioned. And that is the evil of capitalism, the evil of the economic disparity. And again, there's so many quotes from Martin Luther King about the problems of the American economic system and the capitalist system. In 1966, he said that, I am saying there's something wrong with capitalism. There must be a better distribution of wealth. And maybe America must move towards a democratic socialism, and quote, you know, this is Bernie Sanders right here, right? This is the same notion of you can't have this type of wealth disparity. Two weeks before his assassination in March of 1968, literally two weeks before his assassination, we can feel Martin Luther King's exasperation and frustration when he says in the famous speech at the Bishop Charles Temple of Church in Memphis, he said this, you know, this is in the famous sanitation workers strike, you know, this is literally two weeks before his assassination. He says, if America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and to make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell. End quote. He is condemning America to hell for economic inequality. And that's why in a New York Times, famous New York Times interview, Martin Luther King literally said that in a sense, our struggle is a class struggle. In a sense, obviously the racial is the primary. But what he means here is that race has also resulted in a division of a socioeconomic status and class that is well known to all of us. We're all aware that the average Caucasian household is triple or quadruple in terms of net worth than the average African American household. So there's something that needs to be said here as well about economic disparity and about capitalism. And again, much can be said from an Islamic perspective. The notion of Islamic economics is a very, very interesting concept, much more than I can summarize in 10 minutes. We should all be aware, though, that the faith of Islam, it is a faith that does have suggestions and guidelines on every single aspect of one's life. And much of it does deal with finances. In other words, the faith tells the faithful how to deal with their finances. And there are laws and there are rules and there are regulations of a faith based nature that are economic in manifestation. In other words, believing Muslims are very, very cautious about what they can or they cannot do. If you log on to my YouTube channel and you go over, have a special section called Q&A where I'm asked questions by American Muslims, I would say 30% of those questions are economic in nature. That can I do this? Am I allowed to do this? Am I allowed to sell in this manner? Am I allowed to do all of these questions of an economic nature? They are very pertinent to life and they're asking obviously from an ethical perspective, from a moral perspective. Legally is one thing and then ethically and morally and religiously is another. So Islamic economics is very, very interesting and it is different than Western capitalism. It's not against it but neither is it for it. It is its own system and some aspects conform with modern capitalism and many aspects do not. Obviously, this is not the time for a full-fledged lecture but I think it'll be interesting to go over maybe two or three major differences or similarities. Now obviously, Islamic economics, the religion of Islam does afford private wealth and private property. It encourages entrepreneurship and so in that sense, the faith of Islam is definitely not communistic or completely socialistic in nature. The state does not own and control everything. We don't just divide up resources equally amongst every single person. There is private property. There is an encouragement to be resourceful and to have a job or to have a permissible source of income. And by the way, interestingly enough, what is praised the most in the traditions of the Prophet is actually manual labor. There's a famous tradition of the Prophet. The purest money that anybody can earn is the money that is earned from the sweat of your brow. So the effort that you put and then you're compensated for it, that is the purest and the best type of income. And in fact, he himself, the Prophet himself said that I used to be a shepherd and I'm proud of that and that I used to have a job when I was a younger person. That was the job that I had. And he mentioned that most of the prophets of God were actually manual laborers, so carpentry or whatever other jobs that they had. And so he mentioned that being somebody that has a trade or a profession is something that is a blessed. As for businesses and as for buying and selling, the Prophet encouraged this as long as there's honesty. One of the things that is very severely forbidden is any type of dishonesty. He mentioned that there are a number of traditions that mention that any trader that is dishonest that sells merchandise that is sub par promising it as something else that that person will not be blessed by God. So all of the income would be considered to be immoral. And that's one of the things that I get asked is that interesting leftist Islamic economics. Again, there's so many interesting points here. If a righteous God fearing Muslim were to sell you something by Islamic law, he is required to point out any major defects. He has to point that out. He cannot hide them or else the money earned would be considered immoral, would be considered not blessed by God. And so if he sells you a car, he should say, oh, you know, I'm having some great problems, you should know about that. If he's selling you a house, you should tell you, oh, you know, inside the closet, maybe you didn't open it, but there's a crack, you know, over there, you should know about it. So this is actually Islamic law that you have to point out any major defect and not hide or not try to deceive the buyer. He should be aware and you offer a price that is fair so that the person knows and is aware of that. So in that element, obviously, there's some similarities and some differences. One of the key differences is that Islam mandates charity. So there's two types of charity. There's obligatory charity called Zakat. And then there's encouraged charity called Sadaqah. And so every practicing Muslim that earns above a basic threshold to live, every Muslim is required to give, well, required to give the first type. And the second is very, very, very strongly encouraged. And in practice, pretty much every Muslim will also be giving extra charity. Charity is considered to be blessed that every person should be constantly giving charity as frequently as possible. And of course, the first type is obligatory. And therefore, in an ideal Islamic land, it would actually be collected by the state and then distributed to the poor by the state. And so there is a public welfare system for food, for drinks, for housing, that every single person is going to be taxed a percentage. So the more you have, the more that will come out in that charity. And then above and beyond, there will be a private charity that will be given. And there's much in the Quran and in the traditions about the blessed are those who give their charity to the poor. I guess the fundamental difference between capitalism and between Islamic economics, and this is something very interesting, I think, is the prohibition of interest, of usury. And interest is considered to be one of the major sins. And this is something that surprises people when they first hear about it, giving interest, sorry, charging interest, charging interest. So you give somebody a loan and you charge interest, you give somebody $10,000, say, hey, 3%, you know, 5%, whatever it might be, believe it or not, you know, in Islam, we have a list of major sins just like in Christianity, Catholicism, we have the list of major sins, right? Believe it or not, like, you know, along with, you know, worshiping an idol and false image and murder and sleeping with your neighbor's wife, in that list, we have interest as well. And this like shocks people because the notion of interest being unethical or immoral is almost gone from the minds of modern men, even though for the bulk of European history, interest was viewed as a mortal sin and in fact, it was banned for much of European history. And again, go do your research and look that up. I don't have time to talk about that in this lecture. From the Islamic perspective, interest is a major sin that is on the same list as paganism and idolatry and murder. And on that list, somewhere on that same list, not to the same level as murder, but still on that list of major sins is to charge interest because for Muslims, interest is simply unethical. It is an obscene crime. It is a crime of the highest magnitude. And that is one of the main issues of, you know, questions that I get and what not about, is this permissible because they're charging even. So of course, the highest crime is to charge interest, but you see, we have the same system for all people. So if you're not allowed to charge interest, you really shouldn't be paying somebody interest either, even though the sin is in the same, but still you should not take an interest loan. So most practicing Muslims in America, most religious and observant Muslims don't have loans for their houses. And many of them don't even have credit cards because obviously credit cards by their nature charge interest. I even know of some Muslims that don't want to have a bank account, you know, because of the whole enterprise of interest. And there's all of these different mechanisms that they use here. Now, of course, the notion of interest being unethical, as I said, is something that just surprises people. And yet should it really should it think about it? What is interest? Interest is the rich profiting off of the fact that they're rich, not just profiting, guaranteeing a profit from the backs of those that do not have the same wealth, simply because they have it, they're guaranteed to get more of it. And you see, what interest does in a society is that it makes the rich richer. And the poor and the middle class are not typically going to get to that level, generally speaking. And that's exactly what we see in the last 100 years. There's a beautiful chart, the New York Times of the top 1% and the top 0.1% how in the last 100 years, you know, the amount of wealth that is accrued by the top 1% and the top 0.1% has increased exponentially. The middle class is slowly forced downwards to lower middle. And of course, poverty is on the rise. There are so many examples in our own lifetimes. I mean, the 2008 crash, I think that's a classic example is illustrative of the dangers of interest. Banks wanting to make a profit, continue to give loans to people, generally speaking, innocent, under qualified people, basically, poor and broke people who don't know how the system works. They're intentionally being deceptive. They're intentionally enticing innocent inexperienced people to take loans they can't afford. They know they're doing this. And it's only going to be a matter of time before a grand Ponzi scheme of that nature is going to collapse. And yet, when it does collapse, as it did in 2008, who gets bailed out? Is it the end user who purchased the dream house that he couldn't afford? Or is it the billionaire bankers who flew into D.C. on their private jets? You know, again, the whole system is set up in a very, very unethical manner. And that's exactly what there's a famous verse in the Quran. It's a Quranic verse. It's literally in the Quran that the Islamic economic system aims so that the rich don't just transfer money amongst themselves. This is literally a verse in the Quran that money should not be a plaything, just transfer it amongst the rich. We want money to be to be distributed in a more equitable manner. And I think one of the most jaw-dropping realities of the economic disparities that we're seeing in our countries and lands is this COVID crisis and the fact that, you know, according to a recent article in The Guardian, one of the most prestigious newspapers in England, The Guardian estimated in an exhaustive journal article that they have, in an exhaustive article that they have, they estimated that the wealth of billionaires during the last year of the COVID crisis has increased by, get this, $10 trillion. Now, I don't know about you guys. I'm speaking on behalf of myself and I think 99% of this country this last year. Definitely, I'm not going to complain and say that I know I have a roof over my head and I have a food tate, but economically my income and, you know, it's not been the same. It has affected, you know, it's been, I'm not going to say difficult, I thank God, but it's not been the way it was two, three, four, five years ago. This year has not been easy, you know, for most of us. It has not been easy. In this time frame when 95% of the country is, you know, pinching to some level, some more than others, right? To hear that billionaires increase their wealth by $10 trillion. I mean, at what point are we going to be brave enough to start questioning the morality of people hoarding billions of dollars when within the same zip code there are people starving. Within their own vicinity is walking distance. I guarantee you walking distance. I guarantee you there will be people that cannot afford life-saving medicine. At what point are we going to say this is simply unethical and immoral? I mean, you know, there comes a point in one's wealth where an extra few billion will not even change your lifestyle. You can't even buy something extra that you couldn't buy. At what point are we going to say that is simply unethical and immoral? You cannot. So anyway, so my point being that, you know, MLK's anger is palpable. His condemnation of this country to hell. We kind of understand it. And I think, I mean, again, what would Jesus do? We Muslims believe in Jesus. What would Jesus do if he saw this wealth inequality? I mean, if he got irritated out of the money lenders, you know, of his time and he, according to the New Testament, was it, don't quote me. I haven't read the scripture for a long time. Did he kick or did he push? I forgot. But I know that he physically assaulted the tables of the money exchangers, right? And, you know, again, why? Because they're charging interest, right? Again, so imagine the palpable anger that, you know, Jesus Christ himself had for that group of people. What do you think, you know, the prophets of God would say to this type of wealth inequality? And I think as Muslims, we can definitely, definitely not just sympathize, but actually offer some, you know, concrete suggestions about what needs to be done. Time is almost up. And actually, there's a very long section left of militarism. I'll quickly go over this. And then I know we have some Q and A as well. The final evil that MLK mentions, which is in some ways the most difficult and awkward for many segments of our society. And that is because this evil has been colored by a false notion of patriotism, by this illusion that to merely talk about it is somehow unpatriotic and is somehow attempting to justify any type of terrorist attack. It's very difficult to even talk about this notion nonetheless, especially because we're talking about Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King once again gave a famous speech about Vietnam in which he mentions, and I'm not going to quote all of it, but he mentions that the Vietnam War is one of the most unjust wars that the history of mankind has ever seen. Footnote here. Imagine if you had seen the invasion of Iraq of Afghanistan. Imagine if you had seen Guantanamo. Imagine if you had seen what we're doing across the world right now. He mentions that the Vietnam War has done nothing other than strengthen the military industry complex. This is Martin Luther King saying, speaking like this, he mentions that it is creating a very bad image of America and the rest of the world. He mentions that it's wreaking havoc on our domestic policies and destinies. We're spending thousands of dollars. He calculated the exact amount to kill every Viet Cong soldier. And yet there are people in the inner cities that cannot even have food or are on food stamps and poverty and whatnot. And he has a whole list of evils. And the sad reality, the sad reality is that every single one of those points, it not only resonates with us today. It's been exacerbated. It's actually gone worse than what he said 50 years ago. Again, much can be said, I'm going to summarize my militarism aspect in five points. Point number one, that much of our foreign, and I'm going to just make these statements. I don't have time to back them up, but I will make them. And if in the Q&A, we want to back them up or examples can be said. The first point, it needs to be said unequivocally, much of our foreign policy, much of our warfare is actually not in our best interests. It's not for our survival. It's not for our safety. In fact, it can be argued that it jeopardizes our interests, and it causes so much hatred in the rest of the world that it is not for our safety, it's actually against our safety. It fuels our own policies, fuels much of the anger that then is used to sometimes justify attacks against us. This needs to be said. Secondly, echoing Martin Luther King, in fact, echoing President Eisenhower even before Martin Luther King by a decade, President Eisenhower's last speech from the White House, right? Today, one president left the White House. The day Eisenhower left the White House, he gave a speech. It's online. You can find a black and white recording. President Eisenhower mentions the unhealthy alliance between the military complex and between our government, between the private sectors that are producing bombs and weapons and planes. Let me add here, oil and between our foreign policy. This has been pointed out 70 years, not just MLK. Lots of people are pointing this out. There is a very, very unhealthy and unholy alliance between multi-billion-dollar corporations that manufacture weapons, manufacture war provisions, other sectors like the oil companies and between our own government. Look at Dick Cheney, where he was before and what he did after leaving the White House. Therefore, it is simply naive and untenable to assume that our foreign policies are warmongering, our invasions are completely independent of the interests of our multi-billion dollar corporations. This leads me to my third point. There is no independent accountability. There is no assessment of the validity of our policies by third parties that we can assume to be neutral. In fact, all we need to do is to look at the Iraq invasion post-911 that we now know was an intentional dissemption. It was a lie that was perpetrated and propagated by people who knew they were lying to the American public and millions of people lost their lives. Trillions of dollars were spent and yet not a single person was so much as reprimanded, much less fired, God forbid, actually sent to jail for the intentional deception of the entire American population. Who is going to respond? Who is going to pay for the crimes of invading a land and killing at least two million Iraqis, at least a million and a half Afghans? Who is going to pay the price of destroying and decimating innocent civilians across the globe? There is no accountability for the crimes of what we ourselves are doing. And therefore, again, this is not a justification, but again, if you read what the other side is saying, you understand the anger and you understand what they are doing. This leads us to our fourth point is that, again, what Martin Luther said, as we spend trillions on our wars, he said millions. Now it is trillions. The Times magazine calculated that we have spent over $6 trillion in the last 15 years on the war on terror, $6 trillion. So what is going to happen then to our domestic issues? What's going to happen to our own hospitals, to our own citizens? What's going to happen when we keep on spending we spend as one nation on our military more than the next 20 nations combined? The amount of money we spend on killing other people is obscene, even as our own citizens are dying, even as they're told not to worry about their own healthcare. Here we are spending trillions overseas. So no better example of this is our current pandemic. It is truly, and again, I've lived in many countries and I have friends across the globe here, here we are supposedly the greatest superpower in the world. And yet across the globe, people are getting vaccinated and people are getting better treatment for COVID than right now. I don't even know when my turn is going to come. My elderly parents, I applied for them, they're above the age of both of them are in their 80s. I applied for them and not even a date. And I'm in Texas, not even a date of when the vaccines are going to come. And even as I speak, friends across the globe have been vaccinated. Or at least they know where they're going to be vaccinated. And here we are, because again, our system is in complete chaos and our healthcare as we're aware. And so again, we can say so much and time is limited. My final point of this, and then I'll conclude the fifth point, which is I think one of the key points that why I'm even speaking to all of you and I, because of time, I'm going to have to summarize this. So here we are spending trillions, killing millions, right? For our warfare. How do we possibly sell this narrative to our peoples? How can we tell them that we shouldn't be worried about their own health? And we should be worried about spending billions on our defense? How do we possibly sell them this narrative? There's only one way to do that. And that way is, well, it's composed of multiple parts. We have to create a bogeyman. We have to create an enemy and exacerbate and exaggerate the evil of that enemy, the nefariousness of that enemy, and then make our own citizens absolutely terrified, petrified of that false enemy. We create a Frankenstein in the minds of our people, not even a real Frankenstein. And then we sell to them that we shall protect them against that Frankenstein. And this is where American Muslims in particular have been trying to point out for the last 20 years, the narrative that the rest of America is being sold. They're being told that the enemy that's attacking them has no valid reasons to attack. That it is as if we are all angelic and they are all demonic. And they are demonic because there's something different about them. And that difference is the faith. It is the religion of Islam. Islam is the enemy, as Donald Trump says. And those people cannot be rationalized or understood. Their faith, their beliefs, their book, their profit become the sources of evil. And not, God forbid, anything we might be doing to them. No, no, no, it's their problem, their mentality, their book. Anybody dares bring up anything we might be doing. And immediately we accuse them of being unpatriotic. We accuse them of sympathizing with the terrorists. The mere attempt to rationally discuss becomes banned. And so the threat of the other becomes far more exaggerated to the point of overshadowing any other threat. And of course, we have seen this. Yes, 9-11 was horrific. But after 9-11, jihadist terrorism is almost, almost non-existent compared to any other type of domestic threat. And therefore, what happens is every other internal threat, domestic threat, is trivialized. And again, no better example of this than the far right and the threat that the far right presents. You know, 9-11 was tragic. No question about it. But 9-11 was not an existential threat to this country. And 9-11, we all banded together and we said, those are the bad guys that shouldn't have done that. Look at the invasion of the capital last week. It's dividing America. If anything, this is far more serious than 9-11 because this is a potential civil war that is taking place. As we all see, and yet the threat is still on those radicals, the brown skin bearded, Allahu Akbar, quote unquote, jihadists. And again, much can be said here. But in reality, their anger and their, you know, reasons are not religious. They are political. I'm not justifying. I have to say this all the time. I'm not justifying. I'm contextualizing. Read what they're writing. Listen to what they're saying. Their anger has nothing to do with the book of God that they believe in. Their anger has everything to do with politics and policies. And unless and until we discuss, you know, the policies of why they're so irritated and angry, nothing is going to be done in any case. Much can be said here. But Martin Luther pointed this out again, you know, 50 years ago. So to conclude, to conclude the three evils that Martin Luther King pointed out, the evils of militarism and the evils of capitalism and the evils of racism, he said very presciently that the three are linked together and we're not going to solve one without all others. And we admire Martin Luther King immensely. And we, as Muslims say, that Malcolm X also understood these problems. And Malcolm X, his solution was that there has to be more than just talk from his perspective. His solutions also included a theological component. And that's why for us, at least, you know, indeed, Martin Luther King was indeed the civil rights leader. But as I said, Malcolm X has a status and a love that we cannot deny. And that's because he spoke to us in a language that, you know, we can appreciate. Final point, nobody should understand that, you know, there's any type of negativity was either of these two. The way I see this in all honesty, we needed a Martin Luther King, but we also needed a Malcolm X. And I think the two of them put together, they help us understand and see the pros and cons of both of their tactics. They both agreed, you know, they were, they were frenemies, right? They weren't close, neither were they enemies. They understood that, you know, the other has tactics that they disagree with, but they understood that the other is not on the other side. They understood that the two of them are fighting for the same causes, and they're fighting for the same peoples, and they're fighting for the same justice and the same equal rights, but they strongly disagreed with each other's policies. I'm going to say quite frankly, I think both of them are right. I think there's an element of MLK, and there's an element of Malcolm that should be in all of us. And with that, I finish my particular talk. I hope that there was some benefit and thought provocation. And with that, I hand it back to the moderator. Thank you all for listening. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, community. We want to take 10 minutes, 10 minute break, get up, stretch, get a glass of water, do whatever you need. I know I need one. It's been a fantastic lecture, so we appreciate you being here. And we will resume at 105. So we'll take that 10 minute break and resume at 105 for the Q&A session with Dr. Yeser. Please use the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen, submit any questions that you have. And we also would like you to fill out the form. Please let us know. We're here for you students in the community, so please let us know. Fill out the link and the evaluation, give us some feedback, okay? And we appreciate you if you have to get to class. And this is all you can attend. That's okay as well. It was great having you. Thank you for being here and joining us, okay? We'll see you all at 105. Thank you. Welcome back. Welcome back, Highline Family. We now will resume the Q&A portion of this programming. We have some great questions. Feel free to submit more questions in the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen as we move along. Okay, so the first question is where can I get your lecture if I want to read? So I actually have a large social media presence. Most of my stuff is on there. I have hundreds of lectures on YouTube, quite a few of them dedicated to this topic. There's one as well that I gave when ISIS was particularly in the news. I gave it in a public auditorium in Memphis when I was there. It's called American Foreign Policy and the Rise of ISIS. And so that's on YouTube. So if you just google my name, Yasser Khaldi, YSRQADHI, you'll find my Facebook and Twitter and social media and YouTube. And that's where I usually have my stuff. I do not have a book or an article published about this particular topic. My PhD is in classical Islamic theology, abstract issues. You probably would not be interested reading about 12th century intra-Muslim issues of theology. That's where my expertise is. So my talks of this nature are going to be found on YouTube. And if you want to subscribe to my every once in a while. So I am a professor and a cleric. And so I have both of these, my feet are in both the doors, if you like. And most of my posts are of a religious nature, but quite a lot are also political. And so if you subscribe to my Twitter or Facebook, maybe every fourth or fifth or sixth post is going to be a commentary on what's going on from a political perspective. So if you're interested, you'll find much over there. Thank you. Thank you, Shia. Our next question is, how realistic is it to encounter a Muslim terrorist in America now? Absolutely and totally unrealistic. FYI, when ISIS reached its peak, maybe 2004 or so, I gave a very, very passionate sermon against it. It went viral. And because of that, ISIS put yours truly on their magazine and called for my assassination. And they did it again the next year. I have the dubious distinction of being, as far as I know, the only person to be threatened twice by ISIS by name and by picture. And calls went out to assassinate me. The FBI visited my house to give me protection techniques. They came to my office. I mean, it was an interesting time. But I was not worried at all. I didn't really take any precautions. The reason being that I'm not worried about radical Islam in America, I'm really not. As a Muslim cleric who travels across the country, I've spoken at more than 500 mosques. I am a mainstream speaker at the largest conferences at peak time. They put me at main stage, 15,000, 20,000 people. And I don't have any security guards. Because I'm not worried, really not worried. I know my community so well, I am not worried at all about some radical Muslim terrorists. They really don't exist as an organized group. A deranged individual you cannot prevent against. But as an organized group, they simply do not exist. They do exist in Syria. Had I been in Syria, I would have taken precautions. Had I been in other lands. But here in America, it's a bogeyman threat. They have not been organized. I repeat, organized. Lone individuals, you can't. People go and shoot up movie theaters and school shootings more commonly than Muslims go and do whatever they do. Statistically speaking, you are more likely to be killed in a school or in a theater by some crazed, far-right person. Then you are by a Muslim terrorist. So I'm not at all worried at radical Islamic terrorism. And I speak as somebody who, as I said, my life is around the Muslim community. My speeches, my lectures are around the Muslim community. And I've never once felt any type of fear, even when ISIS literally called for my assassination. It's public news. The New York Times mentioned this. I was interviewed by Fox News. The only one time in my life that Fox News wanted to interview me. I grudgingly accepted CNN. You can check this online. They interviewed me after that to talk about my feelings. I'm not worried at all. I'm still not worried. I'm more worried, frankly, about the far-right than I am about radical Muslims. Thank you, Shea. Our next question is, you've talked about the three evils and how they are related to each other. If you can elaborate a little bit more about that. Good question. So the three evils, they are related to one another because, generally speaking, they affect the same demographics. They're going to affect the same demographics. So the people who benefit the most from the racist policies, they're obviously the larger demographics of this country. The ones who benefit the most from capitalism are the wealthy and elite. The ones who benefit the most from our militarism are once again the exact same demographics. So I apologize to be stereotypical, but look at the far-right. Look at how they're interconnected together. Look at who benefits from those types of policies. And the sad thing is lots of members of the far-right are themselves economically disprivileged, but they're being sold. As I said in my last point, they're being sold a narrative that this is patriotism. They're not even benefiting economically per se as much as the people that are selling the lies to them actually benefit economically. And this isn't some conspiracy theory. I mean, all you need to do is to look at healthcare. And this is something that Bernie Sanders mentions, Noam Chomsky mentions, a lot of intellectual thinkers mention. The antagonism that certain members of the public feel towards free healthcare. Where is this coming from? Why? It's because it's not going to be beneficial to a certain group and a certain demographics, the same groups that are benefiting from the militarism of America, the same groups that are benefiting from the economics exploitation, and generally speaking, in terms of their race, they belong to one particular class if you get my drift. So it's simple interest. It's a group of people that have the power. I don't believe in bizarre conspiracy theories. I don't believe there's a cabal sitting in some basement somewhere, but I do believe in the influence of money. I do believe that politics can be tainted by people that are getting paid by corporations that have the funds to give them. And if you look at how politics has changed in the last decade, especially the Supreme Court decision that allows donor money to come in third party packs to be created, anonymous packs to be created, we don't even know where the money is coming from. You know, at the end of the day, the politician has to answer to those that are financing him, more than he has to answer to those that elected him. And that is the reality. What are you going to do when you convince? And that's again, I encourage all of you to read Chomsky's The Manufacturing Consent. Chomsky is one of his first books that he wrote when he comes to political thought, manufacturing consent, the illusion of consent. You are creating a narrative that you sell to large segments of the country that, you know, healthcare is socialist, healthcare is communist, for example, right? The people that are being sold that actually suffer, they themselves are not economically privileged, they're suffering, but they're being told they're linking it to patriotism and they're linking it to our core American values. So I think all you need to look at is to look at the group that is benefiting from these policies, and you find that they're basically, you know, one essential segment. And that segment benefits when America goes to war, it benefits when certain classes are privileged over others, and to sell that narrative, they have to throw in the card of racism, they have to throw in the card of, you know, American, you know, identities and values. And again, although this is key terms that are meant to disguise far more vicious realities, these days you cannot say, you know, white versus black, rather you say American values, as if they get to decide American values and American reality. See, I was born and raised here. Why can't I, as well, be a part of that narrative? Why can't my identity also come into play? My values, my faith, you know, what privileges somebody else as being more authentically American than I am. But again, that is the narrative that is being created. So they are linked together simply because the people that benefit the most, generally speaking, these three are causally linked to the narrative that is being created. I hope that answers your question. Absolutely. Thank you, Shea. Our next question, Betty is going to read it for us. Thank you, Betty. So our next question reads, you implied that America should have a more democratic government using Martin Luther King as a source. You also confirmed that in order for this to work, you talked about Muslims, morality and laws. However, in America, although many are religious, the morality standard is declining. How can America have a democratic government when the morality standards are not as high as they were before? There's no easy answer. I'm not going to lie to you. There's no easy answer. This is the problem that all religious figures are facing right now. You know, Martin Luther, me myself at some level, I mean, all of us, like it's, it's frustrating because we feel, I feel very passionately that you have to have some faith. You have to have some religion. I'm not saying if you don't, then you're going to, but I'm saying faith helps you. Let me put it this way, having a higher power and source and having a morality that stems from a, you know, a godly tradition, I feel this better for us. Obviously, I know people are going to disagree, but I feel, and I know Martin Luther King felt this way and Malcolm X felt this way, that it helps. And I think, you know, this is where we're just going to have to try our best. And those that are in agreement, you know, we'll go with that. Those that aren't, at least we can agree to have a civilly robust, a civic society. We can agree to better the circumstances of all peoples, regardless of faith. So I am a faith preacher. I believe in my faith. Martin Luther King was a faith preacher. Malcolm X was a faith preacher. You have to cut us some slack when we say we want people to have faith. What else do you expect from us? Right? Of course, we're going to say that. Even as we say that, we know that not everybody's going to have faith. And we know that, you know, some people are going to have different understandings of morality. We have to accept that. And we have to live with that. And now, as long as we can agree on our vision of a better world, and I think that we can all agree that racism is evil. We can all agree that we have to work towards, you know, economic stability towards all peoples. Everybody should have food to eat. Everybody should have a roof over their head at some level. So as long as we can agree to those policies, after that, any type of disagreement should be within ourselves and healthy. In other words, let's agree to disagree as long as we agree on the objectives and goals. So I am not advocating a religious theocracy, not at all, not at all. I'm not advocating that, you know, everybody, you know, become, you know, wanting to implement their laws religiously. But I am advocating as a religious person that people should think about the role of religion in their lives. They should think about structuring their morality around a higher faith. And again, I mean, as a Muslim, I think a lot of people don't understand this. As a Muslim, we respect and love Jesus, and we value the teachings of Jesus. And we feel, and I'm not trying to offend anybody, but that's the way we feel, that many people who claim to love Jesus don't implement the values of Jesus in their lives. We would much rather, and we don't agree with Christian theology, because we believe that, again, a long point here, but we believe that Christian theology doesn't represent the teachings of Jesus. That's a theological point. But we do agree with Christian ethics, right? Do you understand the difference? We don't agree with the Trinity. We don't agree with the redemption, but we do agree with Christian ethics. And it kind of hurts us, surprises us that those who follow this figure don't seem to follow the figure, if you get my point here, right? So I don't have an easy answer. I think we're just going to have to understand that we have different languages and discourses, and we're going to have to allow the people of faith to speak the language of faith, even as we understand that not everybody's going to like it, and not everybody's going to live up to it. But it is what it is. I don't have a stronger answer for you than what it is. Thank you. Our next question reads, how do you see this new administration tackling MLK's three evils? Oh boy, you asked me a question that's probably going to be disappointing for you. So I began this talk by cryptically saying, let us welcome the return of our standard evils. Okay, that's basically how we began this talk. We are accustomed to the standard problems. You know, Donald Trump was an aberration, took us to a different plane. I am no idealist. I don't believe in a mess I figure in politics. I don't. Biden's not going to magically transform the country. I just hope he makes it better than it is. That's all. But it is almost impossible, given our current circumstances, to reorient our military understanding of our nation. We are the largest, as Noam Chomsky has said. I'm a big fan of Chomsky, by the way. As Noam Chomsky says, we are the largest empire in human history, the largest. And to be that empire, that global empire with over 150 military bases across the globe, right? We have invaded more lands and killed more peoples and whatnot, and then any other civilization in the history of mankind. That's not going to change overnight. I'm hopeful that given the pandemic and given, you know, a number of tragedies of the last few decades, more and more people will see. But I'm not thinking that a radical 180 is going to take place. I'm not thinking that's going to happen. I'm more pragmatic than that. You know, I'm just hoping that we can modify and change. And I'm also believing that, you know, our job, so here I'm speaking as a person of faith, our job isn't necessarily to see the transformation on our lifetimes. Our job is to come closer to it so that we can say to God, we've done our job. Okay. So my job is to just push the world forward in my own sphere of influence. My job is to raise public awareness. My job is to demonstrate to the American, you know, my colleagues, my friends, my neighbors, my, the people that listen to me, the harms of much of what we're doing. Okay. So if more and more people see, and we didn't talk about a lot of other, you know, major problems, I mean, over the foreign policies, I mean, we didn't even begin to mention Palestine and Israel. And the discourse has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. More and more people are now seeing the two sides. When I was growing up in the 80s, right? I was born in the 70s, grew up in the 80s. When I was growing up in the 80s, there was only one side. Now, more and more people are understanding, Hey, hold on a sec, we're not even listening to the other side. Let's listen to what they have to say. So that took decades of work and of patience and of bringing up the narrative slowly, but surely, and it is finally changing more and more, especially younger American people of the Jewish faith are seeing that their own country has policies that are clearly apartheid, clearly apartheid, discriminating against human beings based upon their origin and based upon, you know, their faith traditions. And a simple example here, you know, the COVID vaccine is available in Israel, but only one race is getting it. The Palestinians are not getting it. Think about that. Just think about that, right? The Palestinians are not getting vaccinated. So my point, well, we went into a tangent here. My point is, how did this discourse even become public? Finally, after two, three, four, five decades, people are now beginning to see those that began the discussion 30, 40 years ago. Maybe they've passed on. Maybe they don't even see it. My job is not necessarily to see the end, but it is to push it, push the narrative forward. So I don't think that Biden's administration is radically going to transform, but the very fact that he's going to cancel the Muslim ban, right? The very fact that he's talking more proactively about many of the problems, the vaccine, the COVID situation, whatnot, you know, I hope Guantanamo shuts down. You know, remember, symbolically Barack Obama's very first signature, the very first signature 2008, I remember, we were so hopeful, right? Was to shut down Guantanamo, you know, that icon of American imperialism and injustice, you know? To this day, everybody imprisoned there was a Muslim. Almost everybody was innocent. We all know this, but because of, you know, wars and whatnot, they're just in limbo, complete limbo. Still, there are people chained up and being treated worse than dogs for the last 20 years on some island, you know, off the coast of Cuba, and they have no hope. Still there. I would hope that, again, pressure is applied, things began to change. But if it doesn't happen, you know, maybe we're not going to win every single battle. But the goal is not to necessarily see that change. The goal is to push it forward. Martin Luther King didn't see much of what is happening now, you know? But still, I believe overall, his message was a success because it created that change, you know? So I hope that answers your question. I'm a pragmatist. I'm not an idealist. Absolutely. Thank you, Shay. We're going to move to our next question. And this is from one of our colleagues. And at Highline, we have a large Muslim community as well. And we wanted to, one of our colleagues is asking, what are things that you should or you should not do in the presence of a Muslim? I know that's a loaded question, but just some feedback. I don't really see any major problems or issues. The main issue, obviously, is respect to person's faith. All of us should do this of each other's faith. And I guess, when it comes to the college campus atmosphere, I guess you're asking for very specific minutia, generally speaking, understand if you're a professor or a teacher that, you know, Muslims might have to, if you have an exam on a Friday, for example, and they have Friday afternoon prayers. Other things that come that are important is that touching the opposite gender is sometimes frowned upon. Okay. And so especially if a lady is wearing the hijab or whatnot, that maybe a handshake would not be appropriate that they might think that that's, you know, so again, Muslims are a little bit more conservative in that regard. Other than that, I don't, there are no, I mean, I would say if you see somebody of a different background and you're having a conversation, ask them. Muslims love to talk about their faith. You know this as well as I do. Muslims love to talk about their views on politics. And generally speaking, you will be pleasantly surprised at how knowledgeable Muslims are of current situations and affairs and across the globe because actually all minorities, generally speaking, are far more cognizant of the realities of the world than the dominant majority. I hope you see what I'm saying. Almost all minorities by virtue of the fact that they're minorities, by virtue of the fact that they're, you know, occupying multiple spaces, if you like, they're far more aware of the realities of the world that we live in than many other segments. So you will be pleasantly surprised if you simply open up a conversation and ask him or her about beliefs and about modern issues and even, you know, ask them directly, like, you know, what, you know, is there anything out here, anything that makes you awkward or not? But generally speaking, nothing, nothing much. I mean, I can't really think of anything that would be problematic per se. And even if you were to, let's say, put a hand out would not, you know, the other person's going to explain or clarify and life goes on. So you don't have to handle Muslims with any extra care or protection or precaution or, you know, wear gentle white dainty gloves as you deal with them. No, they're regular human beings, crack a joke at them, laugh with them, you know, just be as you are. And hopefully, you'll be pleasantly surprised that we're just as human as everybody else. Thank you, Shaykh. I think we have, we have the time for one more question. And the last one is specifically to you. It says, have you considered doing a tour for speeches? I really like your speech. I'm very busy in the life that I live. I'm generally speak, so I have, as I said, I have two, two areas that I'm active with. I used to be a college professor at Rhodes College, but it became too taxing. I'm most of my life is dedicated to my clerical work with my community. And so I actually had to resign from Rhodes College. And I'm no longer an actual, you know, professor. I used to be teaching college and whatnot. Now it's all, I'm teaching at a seminary, Islamic Seminary, and I'm doing other things. I'm not turning that down, but it's just very difficult to schedule me. And because of COVID, I'm sitting at home. I mean, when your college reached out and said, you know what, just sitting here, you know, in this my library, this my house, I can give you guys a lecture, no problem. But to be brutally honest, if you had invited me to a physical journey and coming down, most likely it would not have been possible because that takes up too much time. And I have so much going on. So those of you that are listening, if you're interested, just Google my name and, you know, subscribe to my YouTube and my Facebook and Twitter is where I'm most active, you know, I have a half a million on Twitter and I run a million on Facebook. So I have a lot of people I'm interacting with. So you'll hear much more from me directly. And you'll see why I'm so busy and others to projects that doing these types of tours is not out of the question, but it's just not that feasible to do given how much I have on my plate. But I had a great time, you know, talking with all of you and I hope that you guys, you guys benefited. Absolutely. It's been, it's been great having you. It's been, like I said, it's been great to get a perspective. We've been our college, we try to do everything we can to bring awareness around current topics and hear from different speakers. And it's been, so I want to thank you for being here and thank the organization that we worked with. They've been fantastic about getting it. We appreciate you. So, yes, so that concludes our program. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here with us. And we look forward to our students and our faculty and staff possibly being big fans and following you on social media. So we appreciate it. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Take care then. Thanks. Okay, this concludes our program for today. And then so please, we need your feedback. So please fill out the survey. And then I'll pass it on to Betty for the information on tomorrow. Sorry, everyone, my mute button there. We would like to invite you tomorrow to our program titled Racial Equity Moving from Commitment to Action. It is with our presenters Epiphany and Jesse Johnson. It will be tomorrow, Thursday, January 21st from 12 to 1.30 p.m. And you can find that information in the chat box. Again, if you did visit us today, we asked that you fill out the evaluation as it helps us when planning for future events. Thank you.