 Salamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. We'd like, alhamdulillah, to welcome everyone, particularly at such a challenging time, not only in our nation, but in our world, with the confluence of the global pandemic, but also experiencing now the effects of another kind of pandemic, the pandemic of racism and violence against often the vulnerable and people of color. It is our hope in this webinar that we might inspire us to live through, to thrive through the challenges of this time and to gain from it in this night the prophetic voice, the voice, Alhamdulillah, as we know, we have in the example of Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, an example, as Allah tells us in the Qur'an, of the best character. And he is in the footsteps of all of the MBA, but knowing that the best speech is the speech of Allah, we will begin tonight's seminar from the assistant Imam of the Midtown Mosque in Memphis, Tennessee. Alhamdulillah, he is a teacher of the Qur'an at the Miraj Academy. And Alhamdulillah, he's part of a cadre of dynamic leaders from the African American community, Hamza Abdul Tawab. So inshallah, Tawab al Rahim, we want to hear. Alhamdulillah. I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the accursed. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. And the servants of the Merciful, those who walk on the earth in sleep and when the ignorance is lost, they say, And those who seek refuge with their Lord, prostrate and stand. And those who say, O my Lord, we will turn away from the punishment of hell. The punishment of it will be in vain. We will come to the right and to the right. And those who seek refuge with their Lord, prostrate and stand. And those who seek refuge with their Lord, prostrate and stand. And those who call upon the other god with Allah, and do not kill the one who has forbidden Allah in the truth and does not increase. And those who do that will be punished. The punishment will be lost on the Day of Resurrection and there will be no refuge in it. Except those who repent and believe and do good deeds. And those who replace Allah with good deeds. And Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. And those who repent and do good deeds, He will turn to Allah in repentance. And those who do not bear witness to the truth, and when they turn away from the truth, turn away from it. And those who, when they remember the signs of their Lord, they will not turn away from it, prostrate and stand. And those who say, O our Lord, we will turn away from our sins, and our sins will be in vain. And we made the imam to be righteous. Those who reward the room for what they have been patient with, and they will be saved in it, and they will be saved in it, living and peace. They will stay in it. They will have a good future, and a stable place. In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, and especially Merciful. And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth easily. And when the ignorant address them harshly, they say words of peace. And those who spend part of the night to their Lord prostrating and standing in prayer. And those who say, O our Lord, avert from us the punishment of hell. Indeed, indeed, this punishment is ever adhering. Indeed, it is evil as a settlement and residence. And they are those who, when they spend, do so not excessively or sparingly, but are ever between, but are ever between that desly moderate. And those who do not invoke with Allah another deity or kill the soul which Allah has forbidden. And those who do not invoke with Allah another deity or kill the soul which Allah has forbidden to be killed, except by right. Do not commit unlawful sexual intercourse. And whoever should do that will meet a penalty. Multiplied for him is the punishment on the day of resurrection and he will abide therein humiliated, except for those who repent, believe and do righteous work. For them, Allah will replace their evil deeds with good and ever is Allah forgiving and merciful. And he who repents and does righteousness does indeed turn to Allah with accepted repentance. And they are those who do not testify to falsehood. And when they pass near ill speech, they pass with dignity. And those who, when reminded of the verses of the Lord, do not fall upon them deaf and blind. And those who say, our Lord, grant us from among our wives and offspring comfort to our eyes and make us an example for the righteous. Those will be awarded the chamber for what they patiently endured and they will be received therein with greetings and words of peace, abiding eternally therein. Good is the settlement and residence. Sadafullahul alayhi wa sallam, Allah has spoken to you. Next, you know, we're gonna have up our sister, Ndeedee. Ndeedee, I have known her and her family, they're dynamic leaders. She's that Ndeedee, Amatullah Al Capu, that Amatullah comes from a wonderful leadership from her mother who worked very closely with Imam Warafuddin Muhammad Ar-Rahim al-Alayk. Ndeedee now is doing some amazing work in Chicago with a man and also is a consultant. She's just an amazing sister, Alhamdulillah. And so I'm introducing you Ndeedee in that way so it'll give you a few seconds to catch your breath. But tonight, Ndeedee is gonna share with us what one might title, Intentions, Strategy, and Action. Looking at the example of the prophets from Yunus, the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and placing our work in the context of sabr wa sallam, of patience, forbearance, and prayer, Alhamdulillah. So what's that? Ash-shadu an-la, ilaha illallah wa htuhu la shriqa lahu wa ash-shadu an-la Muhammad an-'adhu wa rasuluh. I give open testimony that there is no God but God, Allah, and that Muhammad ibn Abdullah, the son of Abdullah is his servant and messenger. An-nallahu wa malayka tahuyya salluna al-nabih, ya ayyuha ladina aamanu, sallu alayhi wa sallimu taslima. Surely, Allah and His messengers is angels. Some prayers and blessings upon the Prophet. Oh, you who believe some prayers of blessings on him and salute him with worthy greetings of peace. Salawat. Allahumma sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Muhammad. As-salamu alaykum. I want to thank the organizers for gathering us here today during a most critical time as a citizen, as a human, as black people, as Muslims. When I first thought of this, I thought of intention, assembly, and strategy, and action. And when you think about intention, strategy, and action, it makes me think, you can see how it's correlated with the ways that our Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, peace be upon him, taught us to deal with evil when we see it, right? To hate it, speak against it, and our hearts, our tongue, and our hand. And this is the weakest to hate it here and the strongest to hate it here. As he said, whosoever sees an evil, let him change it with his hands and if he's not able to do so with his tongue and if he's not able to do so with his heart. And that is the weakest of faith. But I want us to look first at what God says, what Allah says. And Allah says in his truth in the Holy Book, the Quran, and we will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and the loss of wealth and lives and fruits of your labor and toil, but give glad tidings to those who when disaster strikes, they say, inna lillat wa inna ilayhi rajya'un. Indeed, we belong to Allah and to him is our return. Those are the ones on whom allabah, on whom blessings are descended from their Lord, mercy. And those are the ones who are rightly guided. So it made me think and as I've been sharing this, some talks on this with my family in Chicago, I'm actually talking about Chicago and I'm actually Muhammad DC is this concept of being amongst the Sabirin, the patient, people, right? Potsper Sabir and Jamil and practice a beautiful patient as a way of having patients with a lot of decree and how we determine or the Muslim measures their steps. So when I looked at this, when we, it says, we will surely test you with something of fear, of hunger, of loss of wealth and lives, even before the most recent outrageous atrocities amongst black bodies that we've been experiencing, people who are fearful because of COVID and the reality is everyone is not likely to make it through this. It's not likely Allah al-Alam. There is, we have, we're looking for things sometimes to be comfortable, but nation building isn't comfortable. And I think that everything that's been happening in our lives today is charging us to, I think as Dr. Ware mentioned, when Allah test us, it allows us to raise our station, it raises our station. So we are dealing in a time of great frustration, difficulty and trial. And things aren't going to be the way that we want them, but Allah tells us to give glad tidings to those who say, inna lila wa inna ilayha raja'u. From Allah that we come into Him as our return, those are ones who disdain blessings and mercy in a lot of guidance. Those are the people of the patient and we can be of the people of the patient. And does that mean sitting around waiting and doing nothing? It doesn't, it doesn't. The reality is that as Allah gives us this blessing of breath, it's our accountability. We are accountable and responsible for pushing the effort forward, pushing the movement forward. But there's not going to be a lot of comfort in nation building and the revolution. It's just not. And we're so used to our creature comforts. We feel uncomfortable when we don't have them. I like air conditioning, just like the next person. But we're going to be in some struggle, but it helps us to understand better Allah's plan and to learn. So what I wanted to talk about today was a few points that we can do, that we can pull on the things that the prophets did during times of crisis or struggle. That is to turn to Allah and ask for his guidance, to reflect so that we can see what he wants us to see, to set our intentions so that Allah is the goal to unite and strategize and to act. So Prophet Musa, alaihi salam, he made a prayer in his time of crisis. He said, oh Allah, I complain to you of my weakness and helplessness. Oh Allah, praises due to you and complaints are made only to you. And you are the only one from whom we seek help and in whom we put our trust and there's no power except by your help. So we turn to Allah in times of trial and tribulation first. And it seems like it would be the obvious thing to do, but sometimes our hearts and our desires and our beliefs are pushing forward and they're what's driving us and we're not aware of that. So we need to first make sure that we turn to our Lord. The second part is to reflect upon yourself, to see what it is that Allah is trying to show you. Prophet Muhammad, alaihi salam, would retreat to Cairo. What was he doing? He was reflecting. He was shutting out the noise. We have so much noise. I wanted to send an email and I got five emails on the way to send an email and I got three text messages and I have four calls. We have so much noise. Allah tells us in the Quran that he puts signs and creation for those who reflect. But what was Prophet Muhammad, alaihi salam, doing? He was silencing the noise. He was waiting on God. And what did he get? He got a word from Angel Jibril. Read in the name of your Lord who created. So reflect. The other part is that we need to open ourselves up to see what Allah is showing us. What is Allah currently showing us in this moment? I just sent you the link as well and I'll answer the questions. Okay, people are talking and we can hear them. Shallah. So what is Allah showing us in this moment? He's been showing different things to different people. Different people have different opinions on what we should do and how we should act in this time. To me, one thing that is clear is returning to basics. Returning to what is essential. Muslims talk about the West and the West this and the West that like we're not in the West. We're in the West. We're the West. In the Black community, which before segregation had connected social structure, economic structure, has gotten comfortable with our creature comforts. We don't grow our own food. We don't sew our own clothes. We don't build our own homes. We didn't have a choice. So we did. But when we had a choice, we don't. So if COVID impacts the food change and if the uprisings due to the assault and the assault on Black body and brutality of Black body destabilizes retail, what will we have to do? We will have to grow our own food, sew our own clothes and build our own homes. Lying the tigers and bears on mine. We might actually have to rely on each other again. Dare I say work together and actually strive together in the race towards all that is good. This is the opportunity to rebuild and to get back to the essentials. Next part is to set intentions with a lot as the goal. If a lot is not the goal, if a lot is the goal, then you don't live in frustration when things don't turn out the way that you want them to. You don't live in frustration. You can visit it. My friends know that I've visited consistently, but you don't live there. If it doesn't work, you find another way. And then you find another way. And then you find another way. And if you get tired, take a break and rest and then find another way. Into the organizers and the builders, my fellow millennials and the generation after, those on the front line who are putting their hearts into this community building, are those whose hearts are just broken from the horrific mentality and crimes against black people. Perhaps things have to be broken in order to be rebuilt so that we can build them together on a stronger and better foundation. But don't get too deterred when things don't turn out as you wanted despite your sincere and best efforts. Sometimes we learn through struggle. In fact, that's the only way we learn is through struggle. Prophet Yunus Aleyhi Salam, he was sent to the people of Nineveh to guide them to the wellness of Allah and they were incorrigible. They wouldn't accept it. And he left in anger and frustration. And then what happened? Guy Mabawel was swallowed. But even then, he didn't despair of Allah's mercy. He cried to his Lord the Quran says, There is no God but you. Bore to you. Surely I was of those who were wrong. So never despair of Allah's mercy when suffering and heartbreak reach you. The most difficult time I ever had in my life was caring for my mother until she died. And he prayed that Allah make us stronger in our reliance on him and not weaker and that this would not break us. This would not pull us away from him but it would make us stronger. And it's not a perfect but it's almost like he's carrying us in his hands. And we have our moments but he's been carrying us. And I know what's from his mercy and perhaps even from my mom's prayers. Alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi. And so as we are checking our intention and making sure that our intentions are correct because we also have to check the ego. And make sure that the things that motivate us and drive us are for Allah and not nesty. My teacher in memorandum Muhammad alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi alayhi would say I tell my ego dad, ego died. So we have to check our intentions because she tongue waits for us in the straight path. And sometimes we think we're doing it for the right causes and sometimes there are other things. So it's the end of your time has expired. OK, the last two points are to unite together and map a strategy. The treaty of Hudaybiyah was conflict. There was conflict in regards to it, but it was a pivotal, pivotal treaty for the Muslims. And so we separated ourselves based on labels of Sunni or Shia or man or woman. And we think we leave out our youth. We have to work together. And when we make a plan and a strategy, we need to stay by it. Don't be like the battle of Bukhut. And then act. Act because we taught that oppression is worse than slaughter. And that we need to be witnesses for justice, even if it's against ourselves. I pray that Allah grants everyone peace and a healing that only He can give. Thank you. Wa alaykum salamu alaftullah. Well, next up we have Imam Nadeem Suleiman Ali, who actually is a therapist and a consultant in stress management. He offers counseling services to the Muslim, as well as the general community in metropolitan Atlanta. He is and has served as the Imam at the community mosque in Atlanta, famously known for the message of Imam Jameel Alameen. He's a former convener of the Ashura Council in Atlanta, Greater Atlanta, and is a founding member of the Muslim Alliance in North America and is now currently active on its executive order, Dewan. He embraced Islam in 1978 in the great city of Philadelphia, one of the great bastions of Islam in America. And with that, I'm going to introduce and offer to you Imam Nadeem. I would like to start off with these few ayats where Allah says that, O mankind, we have created you, male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that you may know one another. Lo, the noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the best in conduct. Lo, Allah is Noah aware. And also Allah says, and His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors. Indeed, in that are signs for those of knowledge. And when we look at these ayats, we are informed that race, tribe, culture, all of these are just adjectives that describe us, but having character and ethics is vastly important. And so we have to really look at that when we understand that whether it's white supremacy or black supremacy or brown supremacy, none of them are acceptable. It is only Allah's supremacy. Allah, as we say, Allah al Akbar, Allah's supremacy. And so when we look at, again, those particular ayats, Allah says, just like with Allah, how He discovered on the Hajj, that when He met the Muslims who were of European extracts, He didn't see the white supremacy in their actions and behaviors. And when He surmised that if the Europeans in America came to Islam, it would dispel or get rid of that racial supremacist attitude. Again, so we have to understand that it's only Allah's supremacy. But in regards to how we struggle against any efforts to overtake anybody else, be in supreme against anybody else, first of all Allah says oppression is worse than slaughter. And even when the Prophet peace be upon him, he struggled against people. He gave us rules of engagement, rules of engagement. He talked about the struggle, the jihad of the nafs. You can have an actual physical jihad, but you can also have the jihad that you fight yourself. And so he also said that do not commit treachery or deviate away from the right path. Do not mutilate dead bodies. Neither kill a child nor a woman nor an aged man. In other words, when you're in battle, you don't bother the innocents. Bring no harm to the trees, no burn them with fire, especially those that are fruitful. Slay not your enemy's flocks except for food. You're likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services, leave them alone. And so in other words, if we were to contemporize these concepts, we should not engage in destructive behaviors and seek to find constructive solutions to today's problems. Allah the Malik Al-Shaba'a famously said, by any means necessary. And in the 90s, Imam Jamil was fond of saying, we have to start to define the means that are necessary, not just quote any means necessary as if it's a program. We have to start to define the means that are necessary. We have to engage in self-discipline in our struggle. And we have to basically understand that Ramadan is not just an empty ritual. It is a means for us to attain and maintain self-restraint. We just completed Ramadan. Again, it is a means in which Allah says that He gives it to us to teach us self-restraint. So as Muslims, we should not be engaged in senseless looting and pillaging. You know, we have to think globally and act locally. In other words, we have to find a community. Many people may take Shahada online, get their cook bars online and even pray behind an Imam online. In other words, having a virtual community. We have to get away from that and find physical communities. Online discourse has its place, but brothers and sisters, find a local community that you can lend your time and efforts to. People should support the local leaders, get involved, find a way to get involved. And also we have to understand that African-Americans in the world and trauma victims often react more than they respond. Hurt people, as they say, hurt people. And we have to also look at the view and view the work of Dr. Joy DeGru who basically she talked about the lingering impact of slavery on its descendants and also the descendants of the former slaveholders. Because just as African-Americans are impacted, European-Americans who feel as though they have an air of superiority, they are also impacted. You know, the reactions that you're seeing to the police assassinations is a visceral response to the pandemic of racism. Policing is also a reflection of the overall society where nine white people are profiled and marginalized. And again, as Imam Jameel said, racism, racism is America's age. He said this years ago, until it's dealt with, we will continue to have instances of excessive force in this society. And one of the things I wanted to point you to, there's a, you can go to buzzfeed.com and you'll see the work of Emily Baker White who examined online accounts of about 2,900 police officers from eight departments around the country. And an additional 600 retired police officers in which he compiled posts that represented the troubling conduct. There's a database, it's replete with racist imagery and memes and in some cases long and vitriolic exchanges involving multiple officers disparaging African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Muslims. They were often the targets of these vile diatrizes. And again, these are the people who we hire to protect and serve. Racism itself is embedded in the DINA of the United States of America and it's going to take systemic change to rid this country of discourage. In Islam, we have been given the tools to combat discourage. And as the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said in his last sermon, he spoke against racial supremacy. He said, all mankind is from Adam, even in Adam and Eve. And Arab has no superiority over the non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over the Arab. Also, a white has no superiority over the black nor a black has any superiority over the white except by piety and good actions. And I pray that Allah allows you to benefit from the words that I've been able to share. And I say to Yassasalaamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu. Well, Alhamdulillah, our next speaker is someone who is well known to the community as well. He is a pillar in the Muslim community in Southeast Michigan. Imam Dawood has distinguished himself as a champion for human rights and social justice and has been able to balance the rights and the duties that belong to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and the rights and the duties to humanity. As executive director of care, Michigan, Imam Dawood has courageously represented Muslims and advocates for their rights, whether Muslim or otherwise. And Alhamdulillah, in many instances, drawing the ire of anti-Muslim bigots, but Imam Dawood has lectured extensively in the United States and internationally as a clarion call for justice. He's the author whose works include black Muslim nobles among the early pious Muslims, talking about in America, and toward sacred activism. So as Imam Jaharri said, may Allah preserve him, I will be speaking very briefly about standing for justice as an act of love. And standing for justice, indeed, is an act of love if it is done with the Nia and with the intention of pleasing Allah, Azawajal. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said in the Quran, Inna Allahah, yuhibu maqsiteen. He is one of others in which there are seven specific individuals, groups of people in which Allah says in the Quran that he loves. And one of those is surely Allah loves the people who act with equity. Surely Allah loves the people of justice. He Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And we know that of any characteristic that Allah Azawajal says that he loves in the Quran, the one who perfected that characteristic, that Akhlaq is the beloved of God, Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam. So indeed, standing for justice, if it is done for the pleasure of Allah and within the parameters that Allah has said, both as far as in the objective and as well as in the means is something that is an act of love and earns us more of Allah's all-encompassing, never-ending divine love. So when we look at this and from an Islamic perspective, justice does not mean just us, right? As Muslims, we don't have this concept of justice, only means just us. That when we are told to stand for justice in the Quran, and when we look at the life example of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam, we know that justice for the Prophet just wasn't for him. We know that justice just wasn't for Quraysh, that justice was for the Arab and for the non-Arab and for the Muslim and for the non-Muslim. We know this very clearly. And even to act justly with those who have enmity or have hatred towards us, as Allah, who Azawajal mentions in the Quran, and he told us, adiluhu akrabulat taqwa wa taqwa Allah, be just. And this is what is most close to taqwa, most close with piety with Allah Azawajal. And then he says again in the ayah, the commands will have taqwa for Allah and this is in regards to justice. So we should not have any doubt in our minds, brothers and sisters in Islam, that the issue of standing for justice, for the mustadafeen here in America, for the marginalized people in America, for the African-American people who have been oppressed here for 400 years, similarly or a mirror to the oppression of the Bani Israel in Egypt during the time of Musa and Haroon, Aayyim as-salam. No, brothers and sisters in Islam, that there is no more noble cause here in the United States of America than standing for justice, for the mustadafeen, for the Bani Israel in this land, and that we should be a Musa-wee voice in the United States of America of standing for the rights of black people here in America, whether you're black or not. Now, I want to reference a hadith in the second part and this message is more so pointed towards African-American brothers and sisters watching. So that was a general message for everyone, but I need to be very specific and for the reason that you will hear why. And it relates to a hadith that is narrated in Musnad Ahmed Ibn Hambal and also in Sunan Ibn Maja. And this hadith has a little something in it that it's considered weak, but there's a stronger hadith in Sunan Abi-Da'ud that corroborates this and strengthens the hadith and this hadith in Sunan Abi-Da'ud is considered to be Hassan. So in the first hadith, there is a man that came to the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and asked a question. Is it from Al-Asabiyyah? Is it from blame-worthy tribalism that a man shows love for his qawm, meaning for his people? The Prophet alayhi sallam said, no. So then the Sahabi said, Ya Rasulullah, ma al-Asabiyyah or ya Rasulullah, ma al-Asabiyyah. So then messenger of God, oh messenger of God, what is blame-worthy tribalism? What is blame-worthy tribalism? The qawm Sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam and to reena qawmaka ala Dhun. It is to help your people in Dhun, in wrongdoing. This is what it means to have blame-worthy tribalism relating to Islam, brothers and sisters, according to the prophetic tradition. So I say to my fellow African-American brothers and sisters and black brothers and sisters who are Muslims in general who are watching this, be you West African or be you Sudanese or be you Somali but specifically I'm speaking to African-Americans right now that for those who would come to us and ask us as black people, why are we concerned about the killing of George Floyd when he's not Muslim? For those who say that or say that's not really an Islamic issue, don't let that shake you. We should have love for our people. Those are our people out there. Those people are qawm whether they're Muslim or not. These are the people that we have a shared heritage with, a shared lineage with, the people who were brought here in stripped of their languages and their tribal affiliations from West Africa. Those are our people. Brianna Taylor is our people. Tamir Rice was killed in Cleveland, that's our people. Eric Gardner is our people. These are all our people. Mike Brown is our people. Malice Green that was killed in the 90s are people. The countless men and women who have suffered modern day lynchings at the hands of the police, these are our people and we should love them. And it would be unnatural for us to not love our people. Syrian should love their people. Palestinian should love their people. Kashmiri should love their people and we should love our people too. If only it becomes blame worthy when we help our people or say some things that go against the sacred law, then that is when it becomes blame worthy. And a dulum or injustice or wrongdoing according to the sharia, one of the means is is to take something out of its proper place that Almighty God intended it to be in or function in. That is injustice. And by Allah, Allah does not love the killing of innocent people. By Allah, Allah does not love racism and we should love our people. And for the African American people some African American Muslims who wanna argue with us and say, oh, ahi, you know, that's palmiah, that's nationalism, you know, those people are kufar. If those people come to you and try to talk to you about this, to have this strange understanding of Islam that has been detached from the proper isnad and the proper transmission of Islam and how it has been classically understood. Muslims come with this understanding to try to tell you, fellow black brothers and sisters that we shouldn't have love or concern for our people because they said they're kufar. It was recited earlier in the Quran when Sidi Hamza, may Allah preserve him, recited it in the Quran, you tell them, hallu salamah, you tell them peace out, you tell them peace out. Well, we don't have anything to apologize about loving our people and we should be loving our people and those young brothers and sisters out there on the streets now, right now they're protesting even if we don't agree with all the means. We still should love them and at best what we should do instead of castigating some of the young people who are out there who are doing things that maybe we aren't comfortable with, we need to put our arms around our people and show our people that we love them and show them a better way of how I want to do it. I swear to Allah, I love Allah. I swear to Allah that I love the Prophet, Sula Allah, who I lay about himself and I swear by Allah, I love my people and I'm ready to live upon that and die upon that and I'm asking you, fellow brothers and sisters in Islam who are African-American, take that pleasure day that you are going to live by what's pleasurable to Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala. You're gonna live by what's pleasurable and follow in the footsteps of Sula Allah, Sula Allah, wa alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam. We walk in his footsteps and Allah says, if we do that, then Allah will love us and we walk in those footsteps in justice and we're supposed to love our people and testify and reaffirm that when you see our people out there, there's nothing wrong to cry for your people because you love your people. There's nothing wrong to have righteous indignation when our people are being brutalized because you love those people and you love them and what they're going through for the sake of Almighty God because they are a creation that Allah, as a wajel, honored, including that they have brown skin or black skin and kinky hair. That's called karemna bani Adam because Allah, who as a wajel, honored all the children of Adam. He just didn't honor people who have light skin. He just didn't honor Europeans. He just didn't honor Arab. He just didn't honor South Asians. He honored you too, black man. Alhamdulillah. He honored you too, black woman. And with that, I close. Wa afwa minkum, please forgive me and say that I'm one of you. Alhamdulillah, it is a powerful reminder. And I think that part of the post-traumatic slave disorder really does revolve around having been taught to hate ourselves. That's what Malcolm said. Who taught you to hate yourself? And I think that's a common condition among those whether you were part of the slave trade or whether you were part of the colonized people, there was a systematic approach to remove the Fad-durrura from Al-Qasr-e-Sharia from us. But let me go ahead next. I am honored to bring on now Imam Dr. Omar Suleiman, a man who needs no introduction as probably many of these presenters you know them and love them. He is the founder and president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. A professor of graduate liberal studies in the department there at SMU. And co-chair emeritus of Faith Forward Dallas, who we've seen Faith Forward Dallas in some of these incidents of racial tension before. So, or on the Mexican border, as it relates to the discrimination against our Latino brothers and sisters. This is an alliance of Faith Forward Dallas as an alliance for justice and peace. I bring to you and may Allah guide his heart in his tongue and grant him that continued confidence that's so beautiful. My brother, Omar Suleiman, Bismillah. JazakAllah khayr Imam Duhari. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh everyone. Bismillah wa alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala Rasulillah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala rabbil shahri, sabri wa salli, amri. Wahlu al-uqtata min nisan yafqahu wa qawli. I really wanted to be here as a listener and that's what I plan on doing, inshaAllah, along with everyone else is trying to listen, inshaAllah, as much as possible to our leaders, to those who rightfully feel the pain of this destructive system of white supremacy and have felt it for a long time and those who can guide us, inshaAllah, as to what the proper response should be. I wanna start off by saying that my intention for everything that I'm about to share is to help process some of these thoughts myself, inshaAllah, inshaAllah, and so I want to invite all of the esteemed imams and leaders that are on this call to challenge anything that I say that might be wrong, to rebuke me if you see fit. And I want to say that anything that I'm going to say right now is open to critique and is not a critique of anyone else right now that is trying to have a helpful and meaningful intervention for justice in this. This is not the time to throw shade at one another, this is the time to grow one another so that we can all be in the night to be shaded under the throne of Allah on the day of judgment. And I start off with the hadith of the ship, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gave us this beautiful example of a people on a ship, some on the upper deck and some on the lower deck. And he said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, giving this example of the people on the upper deck, not providing water to the people on the lower deck. And so the people on the lower deck drill holes into the ship and they sink the ship. And as a result, and I thought about, I don't want to use the word vandalize and then someone says that I'm using a hadith to justify looting. I'm saying it's a powerful example and a powerful message in that. SubhanAllah that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that if the people do not take the water to those on the lower deck, then the entire ship will sink. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam putting the burden. And of course, this was a method and analogy of Hidayah of guidance, putting the burden on the people on the upper deck and the African proverb, if the youth are not initiated into the village, they will burn it down just to feel it's warmth. I want us to think about what awakens our conscience. And I'm speaking to everyone with everything that's taking place right now. At what point did we feel a necessity to weigh in with injunctions and interjections from the Quran and the Sunnah to eradicate evil? At what point did we feel sleeplessness? At what point did we feel like the situation around us demands a response? And if the answer to that question is that it was not until what has transpired in the last week or so that we felt compelled to speak out on this evil and this issue and to move forward, then we have to really ask ourselves why we were so undisturbed for so long while this issue has been present. And was it because we felt distant from the issue and hence comfortable knowing that this issue was not quote unquote my issue for whatever reason? And how is that from the Sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam? And I want us to think about our Messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam as we talk about issues and methods from the Quran and the Sunnah to talk about his deep empathy, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and the sense of anger that he felt when he saw injustice and vun. Not even just towards a human being, but even towards animals. When the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was marching with his companions forward and in the midst of quote unquote bigger issues, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam sees a bird that complains to him that her child has been stolen from the nest and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam with a deep sense of anger and pain says, Who has caused this mother, this stress with her child? Can you imagine them, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam staring at not one or two, but the thousands of mothers of victims of police brutality and not feeling a great sense of pain on the inside of him, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And if we would say, well, it's out of sight and I didn't see it and what made the Greg Floyd video so disturbing is that it was videotaped, is that it's there, is that you can watch over an extended period of time the slow, cruel, heartless execution of a man who has not been given value in this country because of the color of his skin with no fear of accountability in the eyes of that officer that has operated in a system that grants immunity to murderous police officers for so long, what if the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam watched that video? What if the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam looked at the mothers of those victims of police brutality and saw the pain and the screaming and the tears and the hopelessness and the despair? And if we are to consider ourselves errors of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam then we have to take on that burden of concern as well when Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhu was the Khalifa and he was a man that is distinguished by his sense of justice and he was disturbed by any creation of Allah complaining against him on the day of judgment that did not directly involve him but that operated anywhere under his control even out of sight. Then we have to ask ourselves why was I not disturbed? When I watched that video, did I feel nothing on the inside of myself and only think let me go ahead and give a way in with my opinions online right away or did I sit with that pain for a little bit? I gave the story of a woman in my community because actually someone from Mothers Against Police Brutality reminded me in the wake of the murder of both John and his mother in Dallas becoming a face of Mothers Against Police Brutality that we should try to uplift the names of those who were never given hashtags and I mentioned Dr. Jamila Arshad who in my community in New Orleans was murdered viciously, a doctor that was driving on her way home and saw a young boy that was riding his bike and hit by a car and she stopped over to support to resuscitate that boy and instead she ended up by the way with an officer twice her size sitting on top of her. And somehow after I shared that video her husband actually showed me yesterday the autopsy and said it's the same autopsy as Greg Floyd that she actually died of the suffocation. The cardiac arrest was brought on by the officer sitting on top of her and putting that weight on her and murdering her callously without any fear of repercussions and by the way that officer still on the force. Why? Because it wasn't on video. Is it when we feel distant with things we are okay with the status quo? And that's the problem is that we cannot be okay with the status quo because we feel like we are not touched by the status quo. And it's only when we feel the effects of that unchecked oppression for so long that we feel the need to express outrage and to remind people with the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet's license. This is not accusatory. This is first and foremost meant to be an interrogation of myself. What type of pain, prophetic pain did we feel to elicit a prophetic response when we see these things? It takes the issue of one person like in the case of Hilful Fadoor to capture the sentiment of what was systematically taking place in the background for so long. It took one person to cry and to express pain and to call out the meccans on their hypocrisy with a system that was running in the background for very long to mobilize people. And sometimes it takes the story of that person to mobilize us. And I pray that that is the case with our brother George Floyd that moves us all to once and for all bidnillah ta'ala rectify this great evil that has been taking place for so long. And I wanna rectify a few concepts inshallah ta'ala and then I'll pass it on to those who I'm here to listen to tonight. Some people have reduced this to an issue of race and have made it a point to say, well, not all white people are racist. And I want to remind everyone that this is an issue of state violence. So yes, the claim is not that all white people are racist. The claim is that state violence operates in racism. The claim is not that every police officer is racist. The claim is that policing is racist in America and inherently racist in America. And the reason why that's so important is Sheikh Dawood mentioned a Mousa We Voice. And you have a Mousa We Voice, but you have to recognize it's a Firaunic system to have a Mousa We Voice when you're speaking about this. State violence is born out of white supremacy. State violence in this country is born out of a system of white supremacy. Just what else? Poverty in America is racialized and born out of a system of white supremacy. Our domestic policies and our foreign policies are nurtured by an in-white supremacy. So if it's a cop, here we had officer Wiley in Dallas, Texas. If it's a black officer wearing a blue uniform that murders or that shoots a man here who was trying to get into his truck and the officer assumed that he was stealing a truck and quickly fired bullets. He woke up in a hospital bed with chains on his arms and on his feet. And people said, well, he was a black officer, but it wasn't about the skin color of the officer. It was about the color of his uniform and the state violence that is nurtured by white supremacy in this situation. So when someone says, well, is this about apathy? If this is about apathy, what about this violence and what about that violence? And I wanna make it a point to nip this in the bud, to use black on black violence is a cop out. It is not acceptable. First of all, most people, in fact, all groups are killed primarily by those that are in direct proximity of them. We don't say white on white violence. We don't say Muslim on Muslim violence. And so this only reinforces serves to reinforce some sort of association of violence with black identity, which allows us to escape from the issue of state violence. And guess what? State violence and poverty and racialized poverty and the conditions that have been created that lead us to these tragedies over and over and over again are nurtured by the same system of white supremacy. Imagine if when raising an objection to an Obama drone in Yemen or a Trump drone in Afghanistan, someone says, well, most of the time it's Muslims that are killing each other in Afghanistan and Muslims that are killing each other in Yemen. We shouldn't even be worried about that. But the same system that enabled the drone to fall, enabled the chaos that led to the overall collapse of those societies and perpetuated those conditions that lead to continued systemic oppression. In America, the entire system between racialized poverty, police agencies, the criminal justice system, and all of the implications of that are all nurtured by a pharaonic system that has to be challenged openly. So let me just say some specific things that we are pushing for because I think it's a problem when we only speak in abstracts and this becomes a, can't we all just get a long call in response to all of this? And the state which does not want to be on trial shifts tactfully, shifts tactfully the discussion to a secondary issue to its transgression which led to the original grievance. And that's the problem in Muslims we can't fall for that. That doesn't mean you can't speak about methods. That doesn't mean that you can't speak about how to challenge. That means that the focus of the conversation cannot become other than the initial grievance, a grievance in the transgression that has been left unchecked for so long. And so I wanna put forth some specific calls that you make and that you work with, the organizations that have been doing this work on police brutality for a long time. The Brady List. Most Muslims have never heard of the Brady List. Most people have never heard of the Brady List. Why is it that we have no transparency of who the cops on these police forces are? Why is it that we don't know their previous records? If someone goes out, if someone steals gum from a gas station in high school and has that on their record, and that could doom them for the rest of their lives. If someone gets put in a horrible situation as a young person that could doom them for the rest of their lives. But you have a cop that had 17 previous violations of excessive force. Where is the transparency of who those cops are? I wanna know the history of how many times that officer has used the weapon. And why is he not fired? I wanna know if that officer is a war veteran from Iraq that has a previous issue. I wanna know why my police department is being trained by the IDF in learning occupational military tactics. Transparency has to proceed accountability. I asked the police chief in Dallas here, why is it that we don't know? Or what can we do to know? Make a very clear demand. Officers that have those repeated, like that man that killed Dr. Jamila Arshad in New Orleans, we should know who these officers are. And they should be fired. They should be disciplined. They should not be lurking the streets and we should have some sort of transparency. And the response I got from the police chief was, we don't have the technology. We have the technology to make drones. We have the technology to come up with all this sophisticated technology to harm people further, but we don't have the technology was the answer that I got. Pushing forth with the brainless, pushing forth very specific calls that the police should not be the first responders to mental health calls. Unless a firearm is involved, why is it that when someone has a mental health issues and police brutality victims are disproportionately suffering from mental health issues? Why is it that the police are dispatched first and they can quickly shoot a gun and say someone lunged at me? How does that work with zip codes? Do the police respond to a drug call if it's rich people's drugs? If there is someone that's passed out or that's someone that's acting erratically acting out in a rich suburban area, do the police react in the same way? Why are there concentrations of police in certain areas? Why do police respond disproportionately to certain spots and different zip codes? Why not demand city officials demand increased investment alternatives to police responses rather than continuing to feed the system in the way that we feed the system? And so the point is, and I'm not gonna go through the entire list, the importance of specific calls, specific calls and keeping the issue in focus of that grievance and that transgression that has led people that are fed up and that are not okay with the status quo to demand a meaningful change in society. And that's why manna is so important. And I say this with a full heart that the Quran and the Sunnah, the Quran and the Sunnah, we can only support an issue or a method, religiously, politically and socially that abides by the Quran and the Sunnah. The fear of people departing from the Quran and the Sunnah from what is prophetic and issue or method is real. The fear of people adopting illegitimate political platforms running uncritically to the embrace of those that only perpetuate and devise mechanisms that perpetuate these horrific things without doing anything, that's a real problem. But at the same time, we have to do our part, insha'Allah ta'ala, to offer that Quran and that Sunnah paradigm, bideh ta'ala. JazakumAllah wa khayran. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. And the al-asma'Allah reward you. I have the honor of introducing Ustazah, who I've known since she was a young lady in D.C. Ustazah Aisha Prime is a traditionally trained Muslim scholar who has combined her Islamic knowledge with insights into contemporary affairs. Also, she has a matchless set of communication skills and a passion and love for her community to become one of the most influential, I believe, personalities among American Muslims and in the wider community. She has taught in many different venues. Alhamdulillah, she's lectured extensively at colleges and universities, and she serves as an Islamic worker at the Dar Hijra Islamic Center in Northern Virginia in the D.C. metropolitan area. She was one of the strongest, most powerful 30-second speakers I've ever heard at the National Historic Women's March. And she currently teaches a variety of Islamic classes at the Islamic Center of New York City, or they call NYU. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala guide her heart and guide her tongue, insha'Allah. Next up is Ustazah Aisha. Ta-da! As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Amen. And as I sit and listen on this webinar, I'm always taken aback by my teachers, by the activists, by those who are entrenched in this work. And may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala bless Manah and all those who are behind the scenes doing everything that they can in order to further this mission. And that's just my short little blurb I want to say tonight, insha'Allah. And it has to do with about us being people of Risala. As you know, tonight's topic is the prophetic voice in times of crisis. And so when we look at the prophetic voice, what does it call us to? It doesn't call us only to their voice, even though we are the inheritors of theirs as Imam Omar Suleiman mentioned, that we're here to receive our inheritance from the envy from the prophets. But when we become one who receives that inheritance, what we do and how we act upon that voice is what we're called to. And so listening to that prophetic voice calls us to be people of Risala. And so Risala has three specific things I want to mention is number one, whether or not we're people of a true message, whether we're people of a message that comes from Allah and that whether we're people with that message, that message becomes a mission. Whether we're people who've taken that message into some very concrete step-by-step milestone action that actually leads to a great outcome, right? And so, and then whether, of course, we're people of revelation. Those three things we're looking at, are we called to that? Are we answering that call? And are we following that? Because when I look at the current situation, SubhanAllah, like any time of crisis, that's, you know, I want us to begin to look at historically and step-by-step, even if we were to say month after month after month, where's there a moment when we weren't in crisis? Was there a moment as Imam Omar Suleiman pointed out when there wasn't a mother in the street who wasn't crying over the dead body of her child? The dead body of her son or the dead body of her daughter? Where's there a moment when there wasn't someone receiving a body that was as a result of police brutality? The ones that, yeah, sometimes we get the opportunity to witness it, which is a whole other matter, right? When we witness it, but it hasn't stopped for 435 years, that has been the case. That has, we have not been outside this crisis mode. And so I look at it and say, we are being called out because if we look at, if racism, if police brutality, if oppression could have been legislated, then Thurgood Marshall would have won it already. If it could have been marched out of the American fabric, if it could have been marched out of the American soil, then Martin would have done it already. Then if it could have been burned and looted out of the hearts of people, then it would have been done already. Because for the amount of marches and lootings and burnings and tears that we have cried in this incident, then that would have been done already. So it really becomes a responsibility on the people of Riesala, on the people who claim to be people of revelation, on the people who claim to be people of a prophetic message. Then does, because I am in no doubt about the fact that Islam is the solution. Well, we have to ask ourselves, have we presented that properly to the people that they could take up that mantle and use it? So that when we see them, whether it's this woman that Imam Omar Suleiman talked about in New Orleans, or whether it's George Floyd, that when they are crushing this upon, just like Ibn-La'u-Radi, Allah Ta'ala, when they're using the forces of oppression to press upon their chest, are they claiming ahadu ahad, ahadu ahad? And whether or not we are acting inside of our American privilege, which we very much have. Every last one of us, black, white, Latino, Chicano, we are sitting with a deep set of privilege. But whether or not we are acting upon as Abu Bakr Siddique, Ibn-La'u-Radi, Allah Ta'ala, the Prophet Anas and As-Salaam gave him a call. Use your privilege to go free now. Use your privilege to go get him out of that situation. And then we will collectively use our privilege to make sure we shut that down. We make sure we develop a system. And this is important that we develop a system that we don't just march and it's important, don't get me wrong, that we don't just protest, but that we develop a level of community and system and governance and economics as our sister Nbedi was trying to impart to us. Whether or not we are prepared, can we feed, clothe, shelter ourselves? Do we have a system like what happened in Medina? To say that when that crumbles, do we have something else to put in its place? Many black folk are calling for Babylon to come down. But whether or not we have a Medina system in order to enact it, whether or not we have done the work of building that we're ready for that. And that is about us also being called out. We're being called out. We're being called out to our connection to white supremacy, about our own attachments to its systems. Because I think in our own courage versus our own cowardice. Because when we have people who they're for officers, yes. And how many people are standing and watching? Watching on their phones. That they don't feel empowered enough to say, all of us, let's jump on him and push him away. Yes, someone's going to be shot, someone's going to be hurt. Who's willing to say, I will shield you? Who's willing to say, I'm willing to take that, that courageous step. And that is a step. I hate to say no more, no more. No more mothers crying to the tune of these bullets. No more, you know, Khadija Diallo. No more the mother of Tamir Rice. No more the mother of Trayvon Martin on television crying about the death of their children. We're being called out about whether or not how deeply we adhere and believe in this message. And then of course, when it comes to our ability, willingness, preparedness to divest from white supremacist organizations, white supremacist institutions, white supremacist systems that we have become very comfortable inside of that maybe for a time, we have to remove ourselves for a time, galvanize, organize, build something and have something to put back in its place. I want to think for us to think about one particular point that Imam Omar Suleiman mentioned. And it had to do with the militarization of the police and he mentioned it very quickly. And that was why are our police being trained by the IDF and for those who aren't familiar, why are they being trained with G4S contracts by the Israeli defense, you know, by Israeli defense? Why are they being taught to tear gas as we've seen for so many at this point, decades? Why are they being taught the same type of riot, preparedness on peaceful protests? What does that say about our nation and how we have allowed it to get to this place and how we have depended on this type of training? And for those who are concerned about the looting and saying, you know, the looting and the rioting, let's be very clear that when we're talking about, you know, whether it's the real looting that's happening or the looting that's happening for those who are provocateurs and who are blaming it on it in order to provoke some kind of race war or whether we're talking about the kind of looting that comes as a result of people's deep frustration, right? Because they feel the looting when they, you know, as a result of they looted an entire continent, then they brought them to another continent to be, to help them develop another looted continent when they looted North America from the first nations and then looted literally the bodies of their women and their daughters. So in terms of, you know, let's not get out of sorts when we hear the term looting, we shouldn't become unglued for people who feel so disenfranchised that they're taking small things for those who are doing it legitimately, not those who are doing it as provocateurs, but those who are saying, I thought I worked in order to get a grant for these small businesses and not one black person received grants in order to sustain these small businesses, but we put all these other ones outside of the community and develop their businesses in these neighborhoods. So when you see that, we're seeing deep, deep frustration. That's the one minute, amen. So I want to use my one minute to call out something and to call out to the place that we're facing, like Mosa, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is calling us to a level of courage and scrupulousness that he's calling us to our language. What language are we using in order to call people in because what Mosa was doing was, he wasn't just calling people out for no reason, he was calling them in because the job of the Muslim was to connect the creation to the creator and we can not ever talk about these people being Muslim or non-Muslim. That's, we're being called out for our dead hearts if we're concerned about those lying on the ground or don't worry about them, they're Muslim or not Muslim. What do we do to call them into Allah? That's what we're going to be asked about. And what are we doing, of course, using every talent resource that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has personally given us in order to address the problem. Not everybody is going to be that political activist or that protest, whether you're an artist and you write poetry, whether you have art that actually help assist the anti-apartheid movement, whether or not you are an attorney, you're a teacher, you're a preacher, whatever talent Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has placed inside of you to be a benefit to this cause, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make you successful in that. And I don't want us to be remiss of one important thing. The prophet on the Hisanat wa sallam said, beware of the dua of the oppressed for those who are unjustly treated because there is no shelter or veil between them and Allah. So do not underestimate the power of you raising your hands, bowing down in sujood and saying, ya Allah, ya murif aghithne, ya Allah the one who helps and gives justice, give justice and assistance to me. Jazakum Allah, Al-Qayri, Salaamu Alaykum. Al-Qayri, Salaamu Alaykum, Salaam. You know, I can tell you something for those of you who don't know that if you ever want to hear a ferocious dua called Sister Aisha Prime, because, Alhamdulillah, Allah has blessed her always to provide. I'm sure that it shakes the halls of injustice when Sister Aisha Prime holds forth and making dua. May Allah continue to reward her. Next, we're going to go to our Imam, Imam Zaid Shaker, co-founder of Zaituna College, the Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland, California, that Alhamdulillah, Master Dall Islam in New Haven, Connecticut and former head of the Connecticut Muslim Coordinating Committee and now serves as the Amir of Manor, but he's been our leader and teacher for many, many years. We're blessed with the phenomenal institutional work that he's done and now to head the institutional building of the Muslim Alliance in North America. Alhamdulillah, after Imam Zaid's comments, then we will open up for Q&A. Please submit your questions through the Q&A box on the screen. And Alhamdulillah, we pray that Allah will grant Imam Zaid a tongue that is pleasing and a countenance. Alhamdulillah, that Allah would find beautiful. Alhamdulillah, and guide us in His mercy. With that, Imam Zaid, tafadah. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, Alhamdulillahirrahmanirrahim. Wassalamu ala Sayyid al-Mursaleen, Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salim tassleeman kathira. As-salamu alaikum, Rahmatullahi barakatuh. I'm trying to turn on my time. In myself, my 12 minutes. You should turn that off, you come. So, Alhamdulillah, we thank everyone for helping to make this possible. All of the brothers and sisters working behind the scene at Manu. We'd like to thank brother Tariq, our Zoom master for this event. We'd like to thank the other Tariq, Tariq Masidi for allowing us to use the Celebrate Mercy Platform, the wonderful work that they do. We had actually used a Zoom meeting platform and that doesn't auger well, especially in this climate. And so, they allowed us to use the webinar platform. And Alhamdulillah, we've had 1012 on the actual Celebrate Mercy Platform and then Facebook Live, I don't know how many, but it's not about the numbers. Islam is not about numbers, it's about quality. And anyway, a lot of people out there are saying, what's the big deal? And as was mentioned earlier, some Muslims, what's the big deal about George Floyd? And specifically, what's the big deal about African-American, this exceptional attention to the plight of African-Americans, all of these people talking about white supremacy. Before I go further, anything I say is in addition to what anyone else has previously stated and not an attempt to negate anything at all that they might have said, these issues are nuanced and complex. And so, there are many different angles we can look at them from. And all of those angles should be viewed as mutually reinforcing and none of them as mutually exclusive. But to go back to this initial query, George Floyd did not create this focus on African-Americans in this country. George Floyd did not create, or his killing rather, did not, his sadistic pornographic murder did not create this focus. America itself created this focus. We go back to the beginning of the Republic. Only one people were identified as three-fifths of a human being of a man for representational purposes. That was the African people, no other people. George Floyd wasn't around then. There was only one civil war fought in this country. A lot of people like to see one now, but only one was fought. And it was fought over the issue of the enslavement of one people, one people only, African people. In 1896, Plessy versus Ferguson specifically institutionalized, legalized the segregation of one people specifically, legalized discrimination. I should say against one people only, African-American people. And before that, reconstruction was followed by a campaign of terror to disenfranchise the political progress of one people alone, the African-American people. The civil war, rather as we move further in the history. 1954, Brown versus the Board of Education was an attempt to undo injustices recognized by the Supreme Court against one people, specifically African-American people. The 1994 omnibus crime bill was used to institute a regime of mass incarceration that targeted especially, not exclusively, but especially one people, the African-American people. I think you get the idea. So this exceptionalism was created by the country itself, not by George Floyd. We should understand this, but we have to balance. We have to balance between our love and passion for our people. We have to balance between our ability to look our young generation in the eye. My niece was an organizer for one of the protests in the state of Connecticut. She was an organizer. I can't look her in the eye and say, you should stay home, just chill out. No, I could tell her be peaceful. I could tell her to be careful. I could tell her to speak the truth. Don't go up public and speak fossil. I can't tell her to stay home. I can't tell my nephew who's not a thug who has a master's degree. And I think he started his PhD. He works with struggling young men in Hartford, Connecticut. I can't tell him to stay home. They'll think you're a thug. He knows who he is and he knows what's moving him and he knows the pain that most of us should feel. If you can watch and maybe we shouldn't even be watching that murder and not be pained, something's wrong. Something's wrong, brothers and sisters, but we have to balance between that pain and planning. As our sister Aisha mentioned, so powerfully, we have to plan, we have to build, we have to organize, we have to develop a foundation to begin to systematically address institutionalized and systematic realities. Some people will say, oh, police violence in this country is not institutionalized. If it's not institutional, some people will deny that's even real. How come every year, last year, 1,100, 1,100 people were killed by the police? Europe, all of Europe, including Great Britain, not the European Union has currently constituted. All of Europe, including Great Britain, add in Canada, add in New Zealand, add in Australia, combined with a population of over 800 million, almost three times the size of the United States, they had 120 police killings combined. Why does the United States have 10 times that number? That is an institutionalized reality that's built on certain concrete foundations and we have to begin to question those foundations. We have to begin to chisel away at those foundations until they are no more. That is our call, brothers and sisters. That is our call. New Zealand, we mentioned New Zealand. From 1916 until today, there have been 40 police killings in New Zealand. 40 police killings, that's an average of one, every two and a half years. One every two and a half years. Every two and a half years in this country, there are over 2,500 on average. We have to work to change that because that is a specific, unique, American phenomenon. We have to work to change it. We have our work to do. We have our responsibility to our people, as Madam Dowell mentioned. We love our people. Our people are us. We can't hate our people and not hate ourselves. But we also have a responsibility to our fellow citizens. And I'm gonna say this, I'm gonna qualify it because I don't want anyone tweeting out that I said this, that or the other. If you're an African-American in this country, unarmed, you could work the statistics any way you want. You can create all the caveats you want, but the raw statistics, if you're unarmed and African-American, you're four to five times more likely to die the way that George Floyd died at the hands of law enforcement. You might not be shot. He wasn't shot. That's the reality. You're twice as likely as other demographic groups in this country. That's a fact. 12% of the population, 25% of the police killings. Twice as likely. That's a fact. But it's also a fact that twice as many white people or European-Americans, should I say, are killed every year by law enforcement. Do I say that to reduce the atrocity of what happened to George Floyd or what happened to Tamriel Rice who was mentioned or what happened to Alden Sterling or what happened to Oscar Grant or what happened to Trayvon Martin, police vigilante, not a formal police person, or what happened to Sean Bell or what happened to Amadou Diallo or what happened to Rikaio Boyd or what happened to Ayanna Jones or what happened to Sandra Bland or what happened to all of these black men, women and children, no, not at all. But to say that this problem affects other people. And it's important for us to recognize that on the week during the week that Alden Sterling and Philando Castile were killed during that week, five Latinos were killed between Arizona and Nevada and California in the same week. So this problem, what I'm saying goes beyond any one community, although our community suffers from this proportionate. I said that as passionate as I can on this webinar without scaring people. But all of us will have to come together to bring it to an end. There's no one community who can do it by themselves. We cannot do it alone. We need help. We need help to bring it to an end. And if we don't, if we don't, then if we don't feel the pain of that European American or that Latino mother or father or brother or sister, if we don't feel that pain and that pain and feeling that pain removes us rather to benevolently reach out to those communities and build bridges of collective action, then there are people like White Lives Matter, a neo-Nazi group, like the Boogaloo Boys who will reach out with malevolent, with malicious intent to exploit that pain, to pull us further and further apart and push us further and further away from a solution to this problem. I'll conclude with this. As I said, everything that Omar Suleyman or anyone else, doctor, excuse me, Dr. Omar Suleyman or anyone else said about white supremacy, it's true. But we have to understand one thing. We have to understand brothers and sisters that white supremacy has its origin in 1675, Bacon's Rebellion. And what happened during Bacon's Rebellion? During Bacon's Rebellion, a complex set of issues, Bacon was, he was a rich man, but his poor slaves, both the European slaves and the African slaves were brought together by Mr. Bacon to foment a rebellion that nearly unseated those who were sitting at the helm of power. And they devised what would become white supremacy not immediately to dehumanize the Africans. That was an intended consequence that played out in time. But the immediate intent was to break the unity of those rebellious white and black and whether European American or white American and African who would become Americans a few, a couple of centuries later, slaves. So there will be no unified resistance against a corrupt and oppressive system. And so in these days, when we have to have unified resistance, there are elements in our society that were like nothing better than to use whatever they can to pull us apart. We have to have the vision. We have to have the passion. We have to have the dedication, yes, to love our people and to call out the injustices perpetrated against our people. But also to love this country that is our home and to come together to preserve it because there are people who are helping on tearing it apart. And I'm not referring to those who might be classified as the oppressed. There are a lot of people in the category of the oppressors who would tear it apart if they could. So may we have to balance between that passionate commitment and love for our people and our responsibility to our fellow citizens, whoever they are. We have to balance between our spiritual yearning and the metaphysical teachings of our religion. But if we go too far in that direction, then we will abandon aspects of our religion that are clear in the Quran and sooner that calls for us to be a source of relief for those who are oppressed and downtrodden in our society. And to end, I'll end on this. We'll bring the metaphysical together with the actual societal realities in the maturzaquna wa tunsaruna bidua'ata'ikun that rather you're given divine aid. This is the metaphysical aid coming from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala not from our human means and capacities based on how you treat the downtrodden and the oppressed amongst you. And that's society, that's reality, that's on the ground. So we have to bring these two together and avoid any imbalances. May Allah give us ta'fiq. May Allah Ta'ala bless all of these wonderful, wonderful panelists. May Allah bless this patient audience whose numbers have been consistent throughout wa sallallahu alayhi s-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Wa alaykum sallam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Subh'anaHu Wa bi-hamdik wa sallam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Imam Zaid, I know you're just getting warmed up as many of our other panelists have said. We're gonna turn to the very, very short and I apologize, a very short Q&A. And I've got a question from the audience that says, I definitely understand and see the reasoning behind making quote noise on the streets and how people are saying peaceful protests don't work. So many questions, some really question the Islamic way of protesting, what is that and how do we do it and are there examples? They're saying right now what they're seeing are some of these demonstrations that are just burning and looting, fights. So how can we move forward? And this is an open question, but Shaykh Omar, since you're up and I know you've been in Dallas, I know you've been on the front line in Dallas and some of them streets, how do you manage that? I really, Shaykh, if I could pass that to Imam Zaid. Well, can't pass on that, because you were on the street when they had the shooter up on the top of the building. I will just, I'll say that, just practically speaking last night in Dallas, I'll just give this example that peaceful protesters on a bridge were caught between the police officers on both sides of the bridge that then moved in on the protesters, many of whom were children, tear gas them and arrested over 300 people and were not provoked. So I think the burden of de-escalation falls on the police and on the state. And I think the excuses for militarization, I'm skeptical of many of the instigators and I think that it's become a distraction. So the first discussion, the primary focus has to remain the grievance that brought people out and the burden of de-escalation has to be put on the police that have been overly provocative, violent, dangerous and all of those bad actors that have tried to shift this as a distraction and to allow for greater militarization. Shala, anybody else on the panel? Yeah, I'd like to say. How do we protest? Well, I just would say that peaceful protests tend not to work when they're not coupled with other forms of political action. And so that the Voting Rights Act, for example, was a monumental achievement in the history of this country, but it took the people in the street being led by Dr. King and SNCC and others, the freedom riders, combined with the NAACP legal team led by Thurgood Marshall, who would subsequently be brought onto the Supreme Court, combined with other levels of political activity, including lobbying the president with a lot of pressure. And so when you have peaceful protests combined with other forms of political activity, you have change. And that's something we can document throughout the course of American history. Well done, Linda. I'd like to move on. Someone else has asked a question. Are there initiatives that are taking place through MANA to organize and galvanize us so that we can participate? Can I quickly say, MANA is in a process of reconstituting itself. And so our number one priority right now is putting the infrastructure in place so that we can effectively serve the community. And so this situation came up and we wanted to address it. And we were able to, by the grace of Allah, get this array of very distinguished panelists together. But as an organization, we're in the process of building the infrastructure necessary to effectively and meaningfully serve our community. So I'm saying I'm gonna take the liberty of suggesting then that what people can do that MANA has taken the lead in coordinating this webinar, which draws us together in a broad-based alliance. And many of us are leaders in our own right. If they follow us on social media, if they follow MANA's webpage, they should be able to follow up on a lot of the issues that Imam Zayn has laid out for us tonight. Insha'Allah, also we'll be on the Facebook page because the website- Facebook, sorry, Facebook page. The website has to be rebuilt for you. Facebook page will be presenting some practical suggestions for people, insha'Allah. Insha'Allah. And do both individually to buttress and reinforce and strengthen themselves spiritually and then what they can do in a practical sense, insha'Allah. Insha'Allah. There have been many questions that came up with regard to other forms of activism, but people also had some concerns about how do we engage in this activism during the period of COVID-19? I would encourage people to keep themselves safe because what's expected is there's gonna be a spike because of the close proximity that people have kept themselves in during the protests. And again, they're sacrificing their health to make a point. But again, you can do some more online activity. I put the five calls at where you can contact all of your representatives in your locales and encourage them to pass laws to whole police departments accountable for what they call bad apples. So there are lots of things that we can do from our homes and again, smartphones, they're available. Allah has given us this technology, so use it. Omar Suleiman, you had mentioned, thank you, Esheh. You had mentioned some things akin to what Imam Nadim was mentioning, the Brady List and other things. Would you be kind enough to share some of that content in our chat? So others who are at least on the Zoom chat will be able to find links to some of the references that you made. Hopefully, if we can't get that done tonight, those who have resources, as Imam Zaid said, if you follow us on the Facebook page, we can post those links to our wall. This is a common question that comes up. How can non-black Muslims support our black brothers and sisters during this time? I'm gonna lean to Aisha Prime because she's been uncharacteristically quiet. Well, one of the main things is that, is referred to the black leaders, right? That's one thing, is that to be one big aspect of being a good ally is to be a good listener at this time. And for them to listen to what cues they say in terms of what is acceptable, what do they feel is relevant, what do they feel is beneficial. Because a lot of times we have bad actions with good intentions that sometimes end up being hurtful. So I think it's important to yield to African-American Muslim leadership at this time. Another aspect is speak to your own people. Meaning that if you feel that there are aspects or there are aspects of your community that are suffering from internal racism, that are suffering from their own prejudice, colorism, speak to your people. A lot of times people in thinking about being an ally, they want to kind of join on in, but the most important thing that they can do is speak to their own people about, because they can speak to them in a language and a methodology by which they understand, they know their thinking very well. And so I think to address some of those internal issues, and say clean in front of your own front door, I think is very important. So by the love of him, I've been told that we are at the place where we have to close for tonight, but this is an opening for us. That we are not going to allow the death of one more of our members of the community go without a response and to make their lives mean more than what they mean today by continuing the work. I think someone said it in the panel, that these episodes are wake-up calls for us to then pick up the mantle and continue this work. And so with that, I pray that you will follow us on social media. We want to thank Celebrate Mercy. We want to thank Tarek. Where's Tarek? Is Tarek in waves somewhere? Who's been guiding our technical support on this Zoom call? I'm going to encourage, again, I got another post. Oh, there's Tarek. He got his emoji working. I love it. I'm a lot of pleasure to say for helping us to coordinate this. I would like just to take a quick moment to say that this should be a beginning of our relationship. Those of us who have been separated in different ways, this is an opportunity. If the Jihad, that's what Allah would fit the rights and that's a hulud, if the Deen-il-Lahi of Wajah. We should come together, alhamdulillah, around the call. And then Jihad, you know, I put some books and resources in the chat for those who... There you go. New Jim Crow. You can read that, the kids, all those items, and some steps, some prompts for allyship. I'll also put it in the FB live. Thank you. Thank you indeed. You see what happens? The Jihad, that's what Allah will fit. We're right. The Nasi, Deen-il-Lahi of Wajah. When we come together, well, alhamdulillah, Allah makes things happen. Friends, sisters, I don't want to hold us anymore may Allah reward you. I'm going to ask sister Aisha a promise to close us in Dua. We're all going to be together. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. We thank you so much for this opportunity for us to come together and just to know you. Thank you for guiding us to this Deen. We ask Ya Rabbi that you give us a light from you by which we're able to provide a light in times of darkness. Ya Rabbi, we ask that you give us assistance from you. Ya Rabbi, by which we're able to pull ourselves up and be a means of assistance to others. Ya Rabbi, Ya An-Muhaymi, we ask that you please build the fortress of your protection around us. Ya Rabbi, we ask that you reach deep into the hearts of those who oppress. Ya Rabbi, in turn their hearts. Ya Rabbi, guide their minds. Ya Rabbi, in those whom you decide shall not be guided. We ask that you push them far away from us as the north is from the west. Ya Rabbi, ask that you please develop us in your care, cradle us in your comfort. Ya Rabbi, we ask that you grant us a healing from you, grant us a strength from your strength and honor from your honor. Allah, we ask that you make us amongst those who are truly people of the Prophet and the Prophet, peace be upon him, and who follow his message according to the methodology by which you instruct him. Subhanallah, rabbika rabbi al-azit. Amma yasifon wa salamun alamu rasaleen. Wa la alhamdulillahi rabbil anameen. Aameen. Aameen. Alayka layiğat. Salatun as-salamu ala ala ala alaykum everybody. May Allah reward you. Stay safe. Alayka salam wa ala ala ala. Alayka as-salatu ala ala. Alayka alal. Alayka laalakum. Alayka ala ala ala alaykum. Alayka ala ala ala ala alaykum.