The Pilgrimage of Malcolm X

The Pilgrimage of Malcolm X

Opening and Gratitude

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate and prayers and peace upon the Prophet Muhammad and upon all the Prophets of God.

First, before I start, I'd just like to thank the people that worked very hard to do all of this that you're seeing here today, the effort. There's a lot of people behind this effort and sometimes they're forgotten in the actual spectacle of events. The people that come before everything and set up everything and the people that go out of their way to do things like this, to put flowers there, which is always a feminine touch. So I'd like to thank Khadija O'Connell who did, and I hope everybody inshallah make a prayer for her and her family and her husband who happens to be on Hajj right now and she stayed behind to hold down the fort. That's why they say behind every great man is a great woman and behind every great woman is herself.

And also for the volunteers here at Zaytuna and all of the guests and Imam Zaid also who took time from his community and because he has a thriving community on the East Coast and he took time from his community to come out and spend some time with us on the Eid. This program, it was Rameez who was introducing us who had this idea of using this occasion and he mentioned the reasons for that as a way of celebrating the days of Eid and the Hajj and also celebrating Malcolm or Malik Shabazz. And I think that it's appropriate and fitting that we celebrate the life of Malcolm and not the death of Malcolm on the approximate anniversary of his death because it's actually his life that I think brings so many interesting aspects to the American Muslim phenomenon.

Malcolm X and the Islamic Heritage of African Americans

Imam Malik Shabazz was once asked why he became Muslim and he said, and when I read this quote I was very struck by it, he said that my people came from Africa and he said if you, we were always told that they were ignorant people there but if you go back you'll find that many of the people that came here were Muslims. Their religion was Islam and they had great civilizations in Africa and Malcolm said that in the early 60s when there was actually almost no work had been done on the Muslim presence in this country over 500 years and there's actually some research that indicates that there was pre-Columbian Islamic presence. It's not as solid but it's an area of research.

It's not as solid as the research that has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that large segments of African Muslims were brought here as slaves and they set up Quran schools and they attempted to maintain their religion in spite of a society that was stripping them not only of their religion but of their dignity, of their clothes, of everything. I actually met an African American woman who wore a hijab and I said, are you Muslim? She said no and I asked her why she was wearing a hijab. She said because when my ancestors were brought here they were stripped of their clothes so I just want to wear the clothes like the Muslims have so that nobody can strip me of my clothes.

The Ripple Effect of Malcolm's Legacy

And so these people that came here and lived as Muslims in this land despite all these odds and I recommend all of you to read a book by Sylviane Diouf called The Servants of Allah and it's a beautiful book which was a result of Allan Austin's research, a very wonderful professor who we brought here for the Forgotten Roots Conference. He did the research. Now I want to show you the impact of a man's life because in a sense you can't measure a man's life or a woman's life by the appearances of their life. There's elements in a biography that will never emerge in a book, the biography of a person.

And if you look at Malcolm's life, one of the important touchstones for me growing up was a television series called Roots which occurred in the seventies and people don't know that that was because of Malcolm that he said when he told Alex Haley you know that we were Muslims and Alex Haley took that seriously and he started researching and found out it was true. Well Michener who wrote Hawaii and other books, he read the work of Alex Haley and said that's a load of rubbish and he wrote an article in the Reader's Digest saying that's just fantasy, that's Malcolm X's fantasy. There weren't any Muslims here.

Well Allan Austin read that article and Allan Austin spent the next several years of his life writing an 800 page academic documentation of the presence of several million Muslims in this country. I mean this is something phenomenal if you think of that. That's all from this one man and if you look like Imam Zaid pointed out, his mother, his father, his environment, all of those extraordinary elements that came together to make that man and I just last week I was with his daughter, Attallah Shabazz and one of the things that she said about Malcolm, she said we saw a side of him in the home that a lot of people did not ever see. She said he was a gentle soul in the house and he didn't teach us anything that would inculcate anger or hatred in our hearts. She said he never taught anything like that to his children.

Malcolm's Spiritual Transformation

And so when you look at him and his transformation, the power to me and Malcolm is that, rahimahullah, is that he was on a spiritual path from day one and he was evolving and he was somebody who was big enough to jettison whatever he was carrying when he recognized it was no longer necessary to carry it. Everything in his life as far as I'm concerned was a necessary event because a man's life is the aggregate of the moments that make up his life. The fact that he became a criminal was necessary to understand something about the conditions of oppressed people and the alternatives that oppressed people have.

And if you look at Ibn Khaldun, one of the great thinkers and sociologists of human history, he is a human figure, he is not the property of Muslims. In the book by Mark Van Doren, or Charles Van Doren, his son, called the History of Knowledge, one of the acknowledgements he gives in that book in the section on acknowledgements was to Ibn Khaldun. Toynbee, who wrote a book called Toynbee's History, which is over 10 volumes, the most influential historian on his life was Ibn Khaldun. So people read Toynbee's History and they don't realize they're influenced by a 9th century Moroccan, Tunisian, Andalusian scholar. So all of these

extraordinary influences that are out there and so many of these influences came together in his life, this man, Malik Shabazz.

Understanding Oppression Through Ibn Khaldun's Lens

Entering into the nation of Islam was necessary phase for him because he had to break something in himself.

And what he was breaking was what Ibn Khaldun says happens to oppressed people, which is indolence, which is trickery, which is attempts to escape responsibility because that has been removed from them. Like Imam Zaid said, if somebody's always, every time you get into the race, there's a foot there to trip you, it's very difficult to stay in the race. And when the other ones are so far ahead of you, you can lose hope and just give up and not want to run anymore. So he had to understand all of those things.

And that's why, as he emerged out of that, he was able to address all of those things that he had experienced with a type of sincerity and legitimacy that you don't find in a theoretician. I can write a book of theory about how to solve the problems of drug addiction, but a drug addict who's been through it, had the monkey on his back, come out of it, can write a much more valid book. And that's why Askiya Muhammad, who was in the advisory group of people that advised the state of California, was, he had come through it. He wasn't theoretical in his approach to that problem. And that's so Malcolm, the problems that he addressed were not theoretical problems. They were real problems that he lived.

Malcolm's Voice After Mecca

And that's why the culmination of his life in the Hajj and the events, and if you have not listened to his talks, it's a good thing to do. And I'll tell you something that I've always noted about his talks that occur after Mecca, is when anger is removed from the heart, it's very difficult to speak in a certain way that he was able to speak prior to Mecca. And you can see, it's as if he himself is trying to find his voice. And he was, because of his inherent brilliance and his natural ability to reason, because he always sets up arguments. Whenever you listen to any, he's always got an argument, and he hits on these points, and he gets to the point where it's almost irrefutable. The only thing that could stop an intellect like that is a bullet.

The Suppression of Truth

And that's why the worst types of people are people that want to snuff out truth with violence, because they know that they cannot snuff out truth with falsehood. They can't do it. You see, they can't sit on the same, and this is why there are people in this country that are never allowed into these panels with these pundits that tell you what's wrong with the country. There are certain people that are not allowed to sit on those panels, because if they start speaking, suddenly people are going to notice that these other characters over here, they don't make any sense. In fact, they're using sophistical reasoning, and they don't teach logic in school anymore. They don't teach it because they don't want people to be able to see through sophistical arguments.

That's why they don't teach it. That's why logic was part of every single traditional curriculum in school, was to teach people how to think, how to reason. And one of the chapters in every text of logic is, in Arabic they call it al-mughalatat sophistical reasoning. You learn how to see sophistical argumentation. You learn how to see flaws in reasoning, like an ad hominem attack. Because if somebody's speaking the truth, and then a man wants to refute him, he says, hey, this guy beats his wife. And then suddenly we've gone from an intellectual argument to an ad hominem attack. And now everybody's looking at him like a wife beater. It's a little hard to hear what he was talking about before that.

Sophistical Arguments in Modern Politics

And it's a very common way of attacking, and it occurs all the time. Politicians now use this method. So when you see a commercial of one politician, what he spends his time doing is attacking the other one. He's not offering you what are you going to do. He's just telling you how bad this guy is, because it starts making him look a little good, in light of how bad he is. But the problem is the other one uses the same ad company that produced the commercials, and they can do as good a job as the other one. And so everybody's left just wondering. It's like these pamphlets they hand out to you at the voting booth, and if you read the pro, you're going to vote for it. But then you read the con, you decide to vote against it, and it just depends on which one you read last. Because they have lawyers that are trained in very clever techniques of sophistry.

And that's why in the end of the day, Socrates, they had to condemn him to death. Because you can't have those characters walking around. They're dangerous people. Really, they're dangerous people. People that actually can think and reason and speak the truth are dangerous people to have around for the people that have something to lose when the truth is heard.

Islam: A Religion of Fairness

And that's why Malcolm, one of the things that he said, he talked about Islam being a religion that wants fairness. And he said, and the only people that don't like that type of religion are wolves that prey on sheep. Because when somebody's making his living off exploiting others, and then you introduce something that's going to remove that ability of exploitation, he feels a vested interest being threatened. And if he gets too serious, depending on how powerful he is, he might move to try to eliminate that threat to his vested interest.

Which occurred in Mecca when the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wasallam) (Quran - various chapters on the Prophet's mission in Mecca) began to preach about the unity of God, and suddenly all these Meccans are thinking, wait a second, our business is based on the fact we have 360 idols in the Kaaba, and the reason all these Arabs come and visit Mecca every year is because their idols are here, and that's how we make our money. The polytheists were very ecumenical. Anybody could bring their idol to Mecca and put it there. They didn't have a problem with that, but if you say there's only one God and therefore remove all those idols, they had a problem with that. Because suddenly they had these vested interests that were being threatened.

Challenges to Prophetic Authority

Also their traditions, because it was based on the idea that their fathers were these great men, and the idea of saying that our fathers were fools to be worshipping stones, they view that as a threat also to their lineage.

Because I'm proud because my father was so and so, and now you're telling me my father was a fool? It becomes a little upsetting. So, all these vested interests, and then another problem, the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wasallam) was, he was an aristocrat. He wasn't one of the oppressed rising up with the banner of down with the aristocrats. He was one of their own. He was the son of Abdullah ibn Abdul-Muttalib. Abdul-Muttalib was one of the greatest notables of Mecca. He was the lord of Quraysh. And this is his son who's saying, you people have gone astray.

The Lessons of Hajj

Now, what I'd like to look at is this idea of what happened in Mecca, and I'll just give you from my own experience of going to Mecca many, many times and making the pilgrimage more than once. I remember on my first pilgrimage, and one of the things that Malik Shabazz said in his autobiography about the pilgrimage was he said he learned at Mecca that all humanity snores in the same language. And that's a message to learn in Hajj, that we share these very similar characteristics.

And you look at people on Hajj and you see all of these, you see short people, fat people, skinny people, tall people, beautiful people, ugly people, people with diseases, people in full health, young people, middle-aged people, old people, men, women, every color, every possible type of human that you could imagine, and even some that you couldn't even imagine, you see on Hajj. And this idea that everybody's the same for those few days that you spend in Hajj, they're all stripped of their rings and their, if they have a watch, if it's a Rolex or a Timex, it's stripped. And then you can't come in with your Lexus and think that everybody's going to move out of your way. Because even the princes, when they come in, they end up being in traffic jams just like everybody else.

The Equalizing Power of Hajj

So there's this equalizing event that occurs. And the message of that, because what Mecca is about, what the Hajj is about, is about the Day of Judgment, is about preparation for the Day of Judgment. And there's a wonderful dialogue that Plato mentions, in which Socrates argues with a man whose basic proposition is that might makes right. That's his argument. And Socrates wants to prove to him that it is better to be oppressed than to oppress. Because if you are oppressed, it's your physical being that gets harmed. But when you oppress, you harm your soul. So that an oppressed person's soul can remain intact, even if their body does not. But an oppressor, his soul is what is destroyed through his oppression.

The Argument Elevated: Ibrahim and Nimrod

So this is his argument, his attempts to prove to this man. And this man, he's looking purely in these terms, in

Suddenly the one who was in disbelief was bewildered. He was at a loss. He had no argument anymore.

He said, none of that's going to help you. This judge isn't susceptible to those type of trappings. And you might be able to box my ears off in this world, but if you continue on your way, you're going to get your ears boxed off in the next world. My commitment is to live the best ethical life that I can, as long as I'm in this world, so that I'm saved in that court of law in the next world. And that's what I suggest you do.

That's the message of Hajj. You look at all those people, rich, poor, destitute, male, female, old, young, they're all there for one reason. Ideally. And that is to say one thing. Forgive us.

Oh Allah, you are the pardoner. You love to pardon. It's in your nature, as a divine reality. So, pardon me. And the message that you suddenly realize is, looking around, everybody's doing the same thing. We're all in the same boat here. And there's people crying on Arafat, with tears, and some of them are shouting. And you're looking around, they're all asking the same thing, and then you start thinking, if that's what he wants, he wants the same thing I want. And you realize, you're looking at 3 million people that represent the entire human family, and they all have one common desire. To be freed of the mud of their existence. To get out of that earthy nature that keeps pulling us down. To rise to something higher.

And that's what he saw. And that's why when he came back to this country, he was able to do that. Because the challenge of Malcolm is, that a man from a good family, reduced to a petty criminal, who rises above that, to become a racist that attacks the system that he believed forced him into the life that brought him to the lowest of the low. And then he goes and sees another way out. Which is that I don't have to go that route. There's another way. It's to realize that that one oppressing, is in worse shape, and in more need, of the one being oppressed. And if you can't see that, you're blind. If you can't see that, you're blind. That's the message. That's what he came to say. That these people need help.

And it's very, very easy to have sympathy for the oppressed. But it's very, very difficult to have sympathy for the oppressive. That's what Dostoevsky says, when Jesus says, love your enemies, that's the challenge. It's not loving those who are good to you. Anybody can do that. It's actually having some sympathy for people that you're enemies. And that's why the Qur'an says:

Perhaps God will put between those you are now in animosity with, who will put love between you.

And Allah is capable of doing that.

And Allah is the forgiving, the merciful. So will you be forgiving and merciful? If you want God's mercy, are you willing to extend it to your fellow man?

That's the challenge. And there's only one element of people that are removed from that in the Qur'an. And these are the mockers. The مُسْتَهْزِئُونَ )Quran 2:14-15). The ones that just mock everything, they're cynical. Because when cynicism rules the human heart, you can't reach them anymore. They've just become cynical about

everything. So, that's an element that is very hard to penetrate. But anybody that has any genuine seeking of truth, they can be reasoned with.

The Unity of Humanity

And that's what, this is what Malcolm understood in Mecca. He's with everybody else. That you're all from Adam and Eve. You're one family, all of you, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, you all came from two people.

All of you came from that same soul, and that soul was made from the same earth that all of you were made of. And look what you're mixed with. Look at the elements that you're mixed with. Look at what you're composed of. You're composed of water and of earth. That's it. You're mud. That's what we are. We're mud. We're just mud. But within that mud, there's something, another element. And that element, everybody got it. It doesn't matter who they were.

The Prophet's Recognition of Human Dignity

And that's why when that Jew died in Sahih al-Bukhari, and that funeral was passing by, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم stood up (Sahih al-Bukhari 1312) And his sahabah, and this is a sahih hadith in al-Bukhari. His sahabah said:

It's a Jew. And what did he say?

Isn't it a human soul going back to its Lord? Because in the end of the day, you're all stripped of what those differences were in this world. You're stripped of those things. In that essential nature of the soul. And then you're brought back to Allah. And you're judged according to what you knew. Because Allah says:

Don't make idols or associates with God knowingly.

Accountability and Knowledge

And that is why the Muslims believe that somebody who does it unwittingly is not taken to account. It's only once it's made clear to them what's right and what's wrong. And that's only done through prophets, messengers that come to explain to human beings. If you don't explain it. Imam al-Ghazali said, even if a distorted version of Islam comes to people and they reject it, they're not taken to account for that rejection. And I told a Mauritanian scholar, if the type of Islam that most Americans have been presented to was presented to me, I

would reject it. And he looked at me and he said, you know what? He said, paradise is vast. The Qur'an says, paradise is bigger than the heavens and the earth. There's no population problem. There's no housing problem. Right? The good neighborhoods are all taken. You don't have to worry about somebody creeping in. And look what happened to the neighborhood. Right? Because a Buddhist got in there or a Jew got in there. It doesn't work like that.

The Vastness of Divine Mercy

Right? But are people big enough to accept that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is bigger than anything you can imagine? So the Muslims, we're committed to our truth. And we believe it's true. And we believe that it has things to tell about the other traditions that are clarifying. But we're also committed to the belief according to the Qur'an that people have a right to choose for themselves. And according to the Qur'an that we're supposed to wait till the next world when God will explain to us about these differences. So you stand committed to your truth. And if somebody else is interested in listening to what you have to say and wants to come on, we call it dawah. Islam is dawah. It's an invitation. Welcome. You're welcome to come in. You don't want to come in, you're welcome to stay out.

Living in Peace with Diversity

And we can live amicably. We can live in peace. Because our religion tells us that we're Bani Adam. We're children of Adam. It also tells us that all of us are directed towards God. Whether we know it or whether we don't know it. We're all directed towards God. Towards this reality that brought us into this world. So that's the message. Can we rise above that?

Four Reasons for Religious Differences

And I just want to finish this by saying Rabi' ibn Ziyad, he said there's only four reasons that people differ concerning beliefs. Those who believe in revelation and those who don't believe in revelation. That's one categorization. And he said those are like people heading in opposite directions. Now the beauty of the earth is you can head in opposite directions you end up in the same place. You're going to meet them in that same place and then you can say hey I told you. That's Pascal's wager. It's actually Imam Ali's wager because he said it before Pascal. Imam Ali, a man once said to him I'm not sure about what you're saying. And he said well look at the odds. If I'm right you're in big trouble. And if I'm wrong you haven't lost anything other than that you've lived an ethical life. Like the British ethicist said even if you didn't believe in a day of judgment you should live your life as if you did. Because that's a worthwhile life at least in this world.

Different Paths to the Same Destination

So that's one group. And the beauty of if they want to go that way you can say listen this is the best way to go because this is a land route that's the ocean there's sharks you're going to drown you're going to get lost you're going to have problems but if he wants to go that way the earth is big enough to let him go that way. Now if he

starts taking other people with him intentionally then you have a problem. So you need to warn people but for him as an individual to take that route after you've made it clear to him it's not a good thing to do to let him go. That's what the Qur'an says:

You have your way we have our way.

Differences in Revelation

And then he said there's a difference about revelation. That's the second group. People that have a different belief about who their prophets were. Now the beauty of for me one of the many beauties of Islam is unfortunately there are not all Christians but some Christians in this country I went to a Christian bookstore and Islam was under Satanism. Which is not a good way to try to create a better world when you think one-fifth of the world's population is worshiping the devil and you teach that to other people. Because I certainly if I thought I was worshiping the devil I wouldn't be in the religion I'm in. We don't believe that. So that's a difference.

Islamic Belief in Previous Prophets

But the Muslims we say no Jesus we believe in Jesus. We're supposed to say عليه السلام peace be upon him. We believe in Mary. We believe in the virgin birth. We believe also in a second coming. All those things we believe those things. So we believe in the Christians and then we believe in the Jewish tradition. We believe in Moses. We believe in the Torah. The Qur'an says:

We sent down the Torah.

In it is guidance and light. In it is guidance and light now. There's guidance and light in the Old Testament. There's guidance and light in the New Testament.

A Child's Understanding of Shared Values

And I want just to before I'm gonna finish this. Last night my son in a whispered tone he had a magazine that has homeschooling things in it. He was looking through it. It's my wife's magazine. But a lot of Christians homeschool. And so they had a section on inspirational crafts. And they had a little church and it was a poster you could buy for a child's room. And he came up to me and he said he said Dad I read these and I know there's a cross there and it's a church but it's the same as we believe. It's the same thing. They're all true.

The Ten Commandments in Islamic Perspective

And so I looked down and said words to live by. You should have no other gods but me. That's (لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ - la ilaha illallah) (Quran 47:19) Put nothing before God. Right? That's what Ibrahim said:

My prayer my ritual my life and my death are all for God. Always use God's name respectfully. The Qur'an says don't use God's name in vain. Keep God's day special. Right? We believe every day is God's day. I mean, it's not just Sunday but Jumu'ah has a special relationship to us and these days also. Respect and obey mom and dad.

And we told human beings to respect their parents. Do not murder.

Qur'an says don't take a soul without any just right. Do not take another wife or husband. Do not take another's wife or husband.

Don't fornicate or commit adultery. Qur'an. Do not take what belongs to another. Do not tell a lie. Do not want what is not yours. I can't argue with any of that. It's all true. And if it comes from a Christian it's as true for a Muslim as it is for a Christian or a Jew.

Common Ground Across Traditions

And the same thing if I think of a Christian read the Qur'an with an open heart he would find or she would find that most of what's in the Qur'an is actually in perfect consistency with their own beliefs and values. And the same for a Jew and even a Buddhist or even many secular humanists which is what clearly points out that this is a for the post secular west it's an interesting book for them to consider. Because it honors science. It honors enlightenment. It honors knowledge. We don't believe in the tree of knowledge being evil. Don't go near the tree of knowledge. No, we believe that the tree of knowledge is what you should pursue and you should eat from its fruit.

The Third and Fourth Categories of Difference

So, the third cause of difference is difference amongst the foundational principles within one religion. So, you get Catholic, Protestant, Sunni, Shia. And he says the difference between revelations he said is like people all headed towards the east but some of them are headed due east and other ones are headed southeast or northeast. Those are the different religions. They're all headed towards the same direction. They want salvation. They want truth. But they've gone some of them have gone different. And he said those who have different usul he said

these are like people traveling in the same direction but some have gone they're on the side of the road and there's thorn bushes if it's not sound what they're doing.

And then the fourth difference are those differences within the rightly guided group. And there's plenty of room. And he said that's like a wide road. The Qur'an calls Islam the broad road. It's not the straight and narrow. It's the straight and broad. And there's plenty of room for everybody. Muslim, that's the beauty. In Islamic society you're traveling and the Jews on the same road with you. Right, because you believe he's trying to get to God as well. And the Christian and anybody else that believes in God and is trying to please God. And that's why you're supposed to protect their churches that's the duty of Muslim is to protect other people's religions as well not just Islam. And he says there's plenty of room for that.

Remembering Daniel Pearl

And just in the end I want to mention one thing about also Daniel Pearl. And I would like all of you just know that Allah can heal the heart of his wife and his family. And the interesting thing is is that after September 11th when they interviewed a lot of these people who lost their family members they weren't saying what a lot of people in America were saying let's go nuke them all. They were saying a lot of them actually came out opposed to the bombing of Afghanistan. That wasn't reported widely in the news because these are people who they lost their relatives to the same type of indiscriminate violence.

The Language of Violence and Euphemism

Because anybody that understands the nature of collateral damage Timothy McVeigh called the people who died in the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma collateral damage. That was the word that he used and he was taught that word when he was in the army. That's what he called them. Collateral damage. And innocent people dying I don't know how you call that collateral damage. Whoever thought of that word is is collaterally damaged. They used to call this in this country in World War 1 and 2 it was called the Department of War. But when they go around making speeches we need more money for war, it just didn't ring to in people's ears. So they said let's call it the Department of Defense. Nobody can even pacifists would agree that you should defend yourself. So this is called euphemisms. He kicked the bucket.

The Prophetic Call to Spread Peace

So there's a lot to do and I think we should be committed to to trying to spread peace. The Prophet ﷺ said spread peace. The Prophet ﷺ taught us every single prayer five times a day. He used to say after the prayer:

Oh Allah you are peace. And from you comes peace. And to you returns peace. Cause us to live in peace. How can you say that Islam is a warmongering religion when that's the prayer of Muslims five times a day.

The Quranic Rules of War

And the Qur'an says if you're fighting non-Muslims even if you have the upper hand if they incline towards peace you incline too. (Quran 8:61) And the only reason in Islam given to wage war. There are only two reasons given in the entire Qur'an to wage war. If you are if your land is taken from you or if people are trying to stop you from preventing your from worshipping your Lord. Physically trying to coerce you into leaving your religion you're permitted to defend your faith. Those are the only two reasons. And the Qur'an says God does not prohibit you from from befriending and showing kindness and sharing in your wealth peoples of other religions who do not fight you in what you believe or chase you out of your homes. And God loves those who are just. (Quran 60:8) This is the message of Islam.

The Story of St. Francis of Assisi

So just in that spirit I want to say a prayer. This is called San Francisco which is the city of St. Francis. And I was in Rome at an ecumenical council with major leaders of the Christian religion and of the Muslim world. And there were two leading one from the community of Imam Warith Deen Muhammad and myself were there as American Muslims. And the Sheikh the Mufti of Egypt and some of the leading scholars from Morocco and Saudi Arabia and other places. And Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah was there. And that's how I was invited was through him. The day it just so happened that on the day of our convocation the it was their festival St. Francis of Assisi.

And a lot of people don't know this but the Franciscans actually it is recorded in their tradition that he ended the Crusades. That's actually the belief of the Franciscan order that he ended the Crusades against the Muslims. And the reason is because he went to the Pope and asked for a papal dispensation to allow people to make pilgrimage to Assisi to his church as opposed to getting their indulgence through Crusades. And the Pope permitted that and St. Francis of Assisi went on a Crusade the last Crusade. He went on a Crusade and met with the Muslim scholars and they were amazed that this man and this is recorded in Muslim history and he went back to the leader of the Crusaders and he told them do not fight these people because these are people of God. And they didn't listen to him and they lost.

The Prophetic Warning Against Oppression

Because you don't want to oppress them. If people have some relationship with God even if they don't have a relationship with God if you're a Muslim you don't want to oppress them because the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said fear oppression because the oppressed when he invokes anger towards the oppressor there is no veil between him and his Lord even if he disbelieves in that Lord. Did you hear that? In other words according to the Prophet Muhammad even a man who doesn't believe in God if he calls out against an oppressor God will answer that call because God detests oppression more than he detests a man who rejects the one who created him.

The Prayer of St. Francis

So in the spirit of that I want to look and this is a message I think to people in this country because and this is San Francisco you know this is a city of tolerance I mean that's why Muslims in this Bay Area we take for granted that we're in a very tolerant area we forget that that this is a place where there actually is a lot of diversity and there's a lot of understanding but there's other parts of this country that don't have that but he had a prayer and his prayer was:

Lord make me an instrument of your peace where there is hatred let me sow love where there is doubt let me sow faith where there is despair let me sow hope where there is darkness let me sow light where there is sadness let me sow joy. Oh Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console to be understood as to understand to be loved as to love for it is in giving that we receive and it is in pardoning that we are pardoned and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

And I don't think any Muslim would have any problem with that prayer and I think the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ you could find all of those elements in his teaching.

America Needs to Understand the World

So I hope that that that this country wakes up to the fact that we need to seek to understand more than to be understood because we we've made ourselves loud and clear I think the world understands America pretty well but I think America has yet to understand a lot of the world out there and I think if September 11th should do anything as a way of honoring the dead that their lives don't go in vain is that this country needs to to seriously think about what it is that drives people because when two American kids go crazy in a high school and shoot everybody they send a whole bunch of psychiatrists down there to try to figure out what happened. No linkage? Then why are you sending psychiatrists down there to find out what created those kids? Why are you studying their families? Why are you studying their school?

Because you want to understand what went wrong it's not normal for two 17 year olds to dress in military fatigues with machine guns and go shoot all of their fellow classmates and if you think there's anything normal about that it's just not normal behavior so if you think it's normal to get into an airplane and fly it into a building with a bunch of innocent civilians in it I want to understand what was in their minds what's going on there I think we should try to understand that and if there's anything that we can do to prevent other people from doing things like that then the Arab they say prevention is better than cure prevention is better than cure I think we should do what we can to prevent that.

Malcolm's Transformation as Example

And so I think we have a light and a an example in American Islam in Malik Shabazz as somebody who who changed he transformed he was transformed internally and that in Christianity they call it metanoia which is the Greek word for repentance and it means to change your heart and in Arabic we call it tawbah the Jews call it

teshuva and tawbah means to to turn the heart back to God that's all it means and that's what we have to do is turn our hearts and be vehicles of peace because there's too much madness out there if you want to contribute to it there's no flags right now you know you want to go out there and get join an army that believes in total war.

The Prophetic Teaching on War

I'd rather like the prophet said in the end of time he said there would be wars that were so bad he said break your sword it's in sahih it's a sahih hadith he said break the sword break your bow he said even if somebody comes in your house to kill you be like the first son the best son of Adam who said if you raise your hand to kill me I'm not going to raise my hand to kill you because I fear Allah the lord of the world. (Quran 5:28) Because Muslims don't kill indiscriminately we don't believe in that we don't believe in total war we believe in rules of engagement and fighting under legitimate state authority for reasons and I gave you the two reasons and that's it and there isn't any other third reason according to Ibn Taymiyyah and all of the Muslim scholars.

Condemning Violence Against Innocents

So I don't know how these people justify it but I just what happened to that reporter was a crime against everything that Islam stands for and those people will be taken into account against an entire religion they actually they harmed an entire religion that wasn't an isolated act a criminal act that harmed an entire nation which is Pakistan because it makes people think and I know Pakistanis I've lived a large part of my life with Pakistani people right they're human beings just like everybody else they're good people there's the majority of Pakistanis I've ever met in fact I can say I haven't ever met a Pakistani I didn't like I can honestly say that but that's that condemned the whole nation in the eyes of a lot of people it's a crime.

And then you have Jaish-e-Muhammad people going into the Indian parliament and shooting parliamentarians and almost bringing two countries to the verge of a nuclear war I mean you can't have people going out taking the law into their own hands and we've got enough time with the politicians right we've got enough time worrying about them creating nuclear catastrophes let alone loose cannons out there.

A Call for Spiritual Transformation

So it's a time now I think it's metanoia it's time to change heart this is a time of tawbah and that's what the message I think of Malcolm's Hajj is that he got the message it's time to change and he did it and he paid the price and that's why he's a martyr because sometimes that's the price of making that change he was always ready to die for what he believed but he made a change and in some ways that that change was the catalyst so may Allah have mercy on his soul and God bless all of you and inshallah Allah make these days days of Eid you know days of light.

Aligning Ourselves with Divine Order

And the moon it's all right where it should be don't worry about this universe it's in good hands what we have to

do is align ourselves that's all it is it's just getting our own souls aligned with this perfect order around us it's all orderly don't think don't believe all this chaos theory that it's just chaos now every spring those flowers bloom I guarantee you they're working on getting them to bloom in winter and but that's part of the problem too just leave it alone it was perfect the way it was ordered so just admire the discipline of that that beautiful moon there and it has a lord.

The Prayer Upon Seeing the New Moon

That's what the prophet said when he saw the new moon صلى الله عليه وسلم he said:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi 3451)

Oh Allah cause this new moon to bring in a month of security and faith of peace and submission my lord and your lord is Allah the lord of that moon is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala creator of the heavens and the earth and everything in it.

Closing Declaration of Faith

I bear witness that there is no god but one true god and I bear witness that the prophet Muhammad was a true and faithful messenger who told us that all of the messengers before him were true and faithful and we believe in all of them we believe in the Torah the Gospels the Injil and the Psalms and all the books we don't know about that Allah didn't mention but told us they were there too and all those prophets he didn't mention we believe in all of them whoever they were.

So saying this and may Allah forgive me and all of you.