 I'm Aleem Shavaz and my organization is Crescent Sports Media and today we will be talking about Muslim, Athletes, Activism and Islam. To my right I have Imam Raqib Abjubar. He is the resident Imam of Sacramento Islamic Resource Center. We'd like to welcome you and we will be talking about Muslim, Athletes and Activism. Imam, could you please tell us about the Islamic, Sacramento Islamic Resource Center? Yeah, no problem. Peace be upon you. Thank you for inviting me to this program. The Sacramento Islamic Resource Center was an idea that came about from me being a chaplain, certified chaplain in the California Department of Corrections. That's what originally brought me here to California upon graduating from college and doing my residency in chaplaincy. We decided to broaden our scope a little bit. I've been doing chaplaincy for 30 years so the bar has risen for chaplains to get into certain institutions as far as colleges, as far as prison systems, et cetera, et cetera. So we did our residency after graduating from our residency, California Department of Corrections contacted us, offered us employment. We moved out here but in my development within the system and finding out the California system getting re-involved into the institutionalism of conservation, I found that we could do more for individuals coming out of the prison than we can in. Quite naturally you have to have someone in, Muslim chaplain in to be able to propagate the dean and also teach the dean, but at the same time these young men and women need resources when they come out. They need some type of connection to get back into the community. So the Islamic Resource, the Sacramento Islamic Resource Center came up from an idea because we have masjids. We don't need any more masjids. We need resources that can develop into educational institutions. So the Resource Center was developed to bring our people into a situation where we can help them get back into society with either jobs, correcting the miseducation of the Islamic institutional Islamic education that they had, also doing counseling as far as drug abuse, substance abuse, grief counseling, marital counseling, premarital counseling, and needs to type some of the resources that we have that we are developing. We are also politically trying to get involved with city organizations as far as establishing ESL as a second language for the immigrant Muslims that come, immigrant and Muslims and non-Muslims in the center as well as establishing a monthly clinic within the office building to be able to allow people to have a simple checkup, blood test, blood pressure test, diabetes test, et cetera, et cetera. These little simple things are sometimes overlooked because some people either do not have the resources or the insurance to do so, or they just bypass, haphazardly bypass those types of things. So these are the types of things that the Resource Center wanted to do. In the Resource Center, we do have our moussella within the building to establish our Islamic rights, our prayer services. We hold Arabic classes for beginnings and for those who are advanced, we have an Islamic study class for those new converts or reverts, whatever words you want to use, that's coming into Islam as well as a refresher course and other things that we have to do Islamically but the resource part of the center is the driving thrust because during the time of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, the masjid per se or the mosques per se was the center of society and we've gotten away from that particular thinking. So this also was a brain thrust as far as why we wanted to name it Resource Center. We want to bring the people back to what a masjid actually is supposed to do within the society or within the locale. Well, it sounds very appropriate during these times. In that Resource Center, would you also briefly, would you also have workforce development for maybe the youth, CTE, career technical education and your background is in, I believe you did get a degree in Bachelor of Science in Electronics, is that? Yes, I have a Bachelor in Electronics, B.S. in B.S., Bachelor of Science in Islamic Studies as well as Electronics and then I also have my master's in Chaplaincy and that's an excellent question. Now the thing about that question is, I'm almost going to answer it with a question, is how people, especially our people, see the Imam within a center. The Imam is supposed to do everything, right? So when you have a Resource Center, that means that you have to have or help develop or have an atmosphere with people that have those particular skills can come all for their skills in order to be able to produce that. So we will hopefully, inshallah, be able to do that when the right person comes along to be able to put that in place. So it'll be open to anyone that have that type of skill and that type of expertise as well as education to be able to put that in place. Okay, we're calling people to Sacramento, Islamic Resource Center and your skills and your talent will be well received. Yes. Now let's get to the crux of what the program is about. The Muslim athlete and activism of the Muslim athletes in America and worldwide. I think that when you look at the Muslim influence on, I guess, sports, the sports world in today's time is more of an entertainment. It is not structured from my personal opinion. It is not structured in the sense of activism in the sense that our athletes are politically astute enough to organize a coalition amongst themselves. Everyone in society that believe in a cause organize themselves into an organization or into a coalition, whereas when certain subject matters that are pertinent to them, they come out as one voice and they speak either for or against whatever is going on in society, whether it's socialism, whether it's a social aspect of society or political aspect of society or injustice of society or the justice of society doesn't always have to be negative. It can be something that's positive. So what we have within the Muslim athlete today maybe compared to 30, 40 years ago when Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown and Karim Abdul-Jabbar, when those individuals stood behind Muhammad Ali when he refused the draft, there was a voice, there was athletes. So you saw all of your, if you looked at them as being entertainers, they took you out of that light and presented themselves as an educated political force to say, no, this is an injustice being done to this man. And this is what we are saying and we are going to stand up behind them. Today, there's more individualism. Like when Colin Kaepernick made his stance, you had individuals with him at that particular time, but as the heat came on him, everybody dissipated. You know, they say if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, right? So when the kitchen got hot, people ran. The brother made his stance, whether I agree with totally what he did or what he's done afterwards is not the issue. The fact that what he was trying to bring attention to was justice, was injustice, and it was justified for him to do so. But people kind of, you know, left the man hanging. Okay, very good comparison. And also with Muhammad Ali, there was a tremendous, tremendous cause of why he did what he did. He knew why he did it. And he was willing, long term, to suffer the consequence of his action. Is that the same thing that you're seeing today or is it more, I'm making a statement and I hope this doesn't affect my economics? A law controls your economics, Doc. I think that, no, you don't see that today because you have to also remember two things that was happening in that particular time. During the late 60s, early 70s, African Americans as a people were still being oppressed in this society socially and politically. You know, we were still looked at less as a human being. So there was an urgency to bring upon justice as well as a recognition of manhood, well, starting with humanhood, manhood, economic situations. How are you going to take control of all of that over individual or group of individuals? Whereas today's athlete is making millions upon millions of dollars. You follow what I'm saying? So there's no urgency within society. The only urgency that comes up in society today is when an African American youth or sister, brother or sister is getting shot down in the street or getting beat up in the street by police forces or what have you. But society in this Me Too movement has made people forget that injustices or social development, or I shouldn't say forget, but numb them down to the development of the human being within society. Because everything has come together. So as everything has come together, why should you argue? Why should you fight? Why should there be urgency? Yes, Craig Hodges, he's a three times NBA All-Star for three pointers. I believe in, not sure, I believe in 1991 he made a statement by going to the White House in what he called a daishiki and a kufi and basically handed George Bush a letter that was written by him, and I would say very well written, and he basically was telling about the condition of the African American and respectfully was asking President Bush to put this on top of the agenda. What do you think about his method of activism and how much courage it took to do that? At that particular time it took a lot of courage, but at that particular time also the atmosphere in society was reafrocentrism. So he felt not to discredit anything that the brother did at that particular time because that was the time that he was living in, but at the same time it was a few years after the Malcolm X or just before the Malcolm X movie came out with Denzel Washington. So this reaffirmation of afrocentrism came out, that was the plight of the society. We're just coming out of crack or what crack was really heavy in our society. So it fit the time, but you're saying 1991 is 2020. So now brothers like that. So where do we, where, it goes back to the point earlier, where is the coalition that developed from that? There's no coalition, so there's no consistency, there's always a break. You know, there's no consistency. So why should anybody in power take you serious when you break upon yourself? Right. Well ma'am, it's a very, very interesting subject and this is part one of a series that we're going to be doing and I would just like to thank you for your very insightful knowledge about the Quran and also about sports, your expertise in all these areas have made you a tremendous guest and I'd like to thank the audience and we will be having more shows concerning Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic health and general information about Islamic studies as it relates to our community. And I'd like to thank Davis Media Assets for giving us this platform and thank you very much and please watch again.