They have monuments to liberty
And freedom of opinion, which is well and good.
But I explained to them that
Architecture is not justice.
An excerpt from Sami al Hajj's poem, Humiliated In The Shackles
Islam is at the heart of an emerging global anti-hegemonic culture that combines diasporic and local cultural elements, and blends Arab, Islamic, black and Hispanic factors to generate "a revolutionary black, Asian and Hispanic globalization, with its own dynamic counter-modernity constructed in order to fight global imperialism. (say what!)
They have monuments to liberty
And freedom of opinion, which is well and good.
But I explained to them that
Architecture is not justice.
Paris Hilton is America. Stupid, heedless, rich but not as rich as she beleieves, unhealthier than she likes to admit, casually destructive, immune to remorse, desirous of consequences for those who cross her but unable to contemplate that she should have to face any herself, acquisative, profligate, manipulative, needy, juvenile, boorish, proud, self-righteous, self-pitying, self-absorbed, and self-destructive. Her brief respite from the first real punishment of her life is the pause at the peak of the wave before the ship's keel falls sickeningly toward the trough. She's not a movie, she's a mirror.
* I am asking for Imam’s and Muslim activists of African ancestry to deliver Fatwas on the issues mention herein. To mobilize the Muslim community to act in opposition to Pan-Arab racism towards Black people.
* I am urging Imam’s in the Diaspora of African ancestry to organize a Majlis to guide the conduct of Pan-African Affairs on behalf of the Ummah, and to deliver a Fatwa on Darfur and Pan-Arab racism in general.
* I am urging activists of African ancestry, both Muslim and non-Muslim to support a campaign to pressure the AU to act forthrightly with the Darfur genocide and to resist U.S. backed (UN) initiatives to deploy UN troops in Somalia in support of an unpopular transitional government.
* I am Asking Muslims in the African Diaspora to establish foundation and convene a forum on the African continent to lay out a strategic vision of the role of Islam in Pan-African unification of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Because Allah ta'ala made me both...
Hejab on my head
With a machete dangling from my neck
I'm not a terrorist
Just a bonafide Boricua with coquis on my mind
I love the flares of salsa skirts
With claves and congas singing to my heart's content
While I prostrate on the sands of Rincon
Awaiting the whales to make their presence
Borinquen is my paradise
Allah is my creator
Yes—I can inhabit both spaces
And when bachata comes on the radio
I move three steps lift
Three steps lift
And when the azhan is called
"Allahu Akbar" and "Bismillah" run out of my mouth
Give me some piraguas with a side of dates
A little of sunlight with a dash of breeze
As the scarves surrounding me beckon to worship
I can dance merengue in the privacy of my room
As mis hermanas talk about who is cuter in the group
Because—we are Boricuas loving our land
We are boricuas dancing our traditional beats
We are boricuas wearing our big fluffy skirts
We are boricuas eating our arroz con habichuelas
We don't have to occupy one of your little boxes
Entrenching our identities into something you can label
We don't have to deny our abuelitas and our salsa beats
So I can't eat pernil anymore.
It's okay—pork has never been my thing any ways
But I can still enjoy las playas as I wet my feet on
Caribbean oceans
Because I am more
More than your dichotomies
More than your ideologies
I am not just a Boricua
Or someone who worships Allah
So if you need a label to satisfy your curiosity
I'll give you one now
With Qur'an in hand
Y bandera in the other
I am beyond your words
Because I am a MusliRican
Are there many Muslims in Cuba? Why would a Cuban want to become a Muslim? These are the two questions I am most frequently asked when introducing myself, or in the case of old friends, re-introduce myself by my Muslim name, Assad Jibril Pino. The answer to the first query is a simple yes. Several thousand Muslims reside in Cuba, most of them descendants of Lebanese immigrants. However, the second question always makes me pause and ponder before I reply, even though I have heard it hundreds of times. It is a loaded question of course, because it presumes that religion is the product of ethnic identity, and that Muslim and Cuban only belong together on the restaurant menu of a Miami luncheonette: "I’ll have Moros y Cristianos, with a side of croquetas."
Mercy is a start-up non profit Islamic Magazine published by the North American Foundation of Islamic Services. Mercy is a Western Muslims’ guide to reviving their faith and to achieving excellence in both their spiritual and community spheres. Mercy aspires to become a distinguished companion to the active Western Muslim, nurturing the soul and mind, and reviving, reforming and renewing both the Dīn & Imān in its three aspects: education, organization, and action.
Islamic prayers mingled with the bustling sounds of traffic as he prostrated himself in prayer in a little mosque in Havana, Cuba, recalls Diego Santos, a Cuban-American who traveled to the communist state not long ago to visit his family.
A recent convert to Islam and a writer who prefers not to use his real name, Santos says that Islam in Cuba—like in America—is becoming more visible and that during his stay he found no attempt to repress it. In fact, after jum’a, Friday prayers, Santos talked openly in Spanish about Islam with fellow Muslims while strolling down the crowded streets of old Havana, even passing the government offices of the Cuban Community for the Defense of the Revolution, which has a notorious reputation for being the snitch center for Cuban rule breakers. "Nobody was hiding their Islam in Havana," says Santos.
Back in Los Angeles, Santos attends meetings of the Los Angeles Latino Muslim Association (LALMA), an organization working to help inform the Latino community about Islam. Santos says as a Cuban-American that he has been well embraced by the Muslim community in America because his conversion confirms Islam as a universal religion. Santos hopes that more people will understand that Islam is for everyone whether they live in Europe, America or even Cuba.
The Gospel from Outer Space
It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low.
But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes.
The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being of the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:
Oh, boy -- they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!
And then that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it goes.
The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.
So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was.
And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!
Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center
invites the community to attend their first
Hispanic Muslim Day
"The Pathway to Islam"
Saturday May 12, 2007 starting at 11:00AM to 5:00PM
Presenting:
The Beauty of Family in Islam
By Muhammad Isa Garcia from Argentina
Graduate of Umm Al Qura University in Makkah,
College of Da'wah , Hadith and Tafsir
Followed by
Understanding New Muslims: My experience as an Hispanic Muslim
A panel of Hispanic brothers and sisters discussing their experience in Islam
All lectures will be in English and Spanish
Hosted by:
Imam Abdul Malik Johari
and
Sheikh Shaker Al Sayyed,
Imam of Dar Al Hijrah
Includes a tour of the mosque and lunch
Be sure to bring your family and friends
For more information please contact
Imam Abdul Malik Johari at 202 345-5233
Musulmanes_hispanos@yahoo.com for Spanish and English
or check out Dar Al Hijrah's Website
In the year 146 A.H, Abu Hanifah was sent to prison by Mansur, the leader at the time, after the Imam’s refusal to state that Mansur was the rightful khalifa, as well as refusing the position of presidency of the supreme court in recompense. Whilst in prison Imam Abu Hanifah was thrashed with a stick. Mansur repented and sent the Imam money, only to be refused again. By now Imam Abu Hanifah had become well known and thousands flocked to meet and seek his opinion wherever he went. His imprisonment far from reduced his popularity, and Mansur realised that he would have to treat the Imam carefully, thus he allowed him to teach whilst still in prison. Mansur finally decided to do away with the great Imam and had him poisoned. Abu Hanifah feeling the effects of the poison, bent down in prayer and died in the month on Rajab. News of the Imam’s death reached far and wide, and thousands gathered at the prison. The city Qadi washed his body, and kept repeating "by God you were the greatest faqih and the most pious man of our time....".
Imam Malik was known for his integrity and peity. He always lived up to his convictions. Neither fear nor favour could ever deflect him from the right path. He was among the members of the glorious society of early Islam who could not be purchased and whose undaunted courage always proved as a guiding star for the freedom fighters.
When he was aged twenty-five, the Caliphate passed into the hands of the Abbasids caliph Mansur who was his colleague. Mansur highly respected him for his deep learning. The Imam however, favoured the Fatimid Nafs Zakriya for the exalted office of the Caliph. When he learned that the people had taken the oath of fealty of Mansur, he said that since Mansur had forced people to do so, the oath was not binding them. He quoted a Tradition of the Prophet (sws) to the effect that a divorce by force is not legal. When Jafar, a cousin of Mansur, was posted as Governor of Medina, he induced the inhabitants of the Holy city to renew their oath of allegiance to Mansur. The Governor forbade him not to publicise his Fatwa in respect of forced divorce. Highly principled and fearless as he was, the defied the Governor’s orders and courageously persisted in his course. This infuriated the Governor, who ordered that the Imam be awarded 70 stripes, as punishment. According, seventy stripes were inflicted on the naked back of the Imam which began to bleed. Mounted on a camel in his bloodstaind clothes, he was paraded through the streets of Medina. This brutality of the Governor failed to cow down or unnerve the noble Imam. Caliph Mansur, when apprised of he matter, punished the Governor and apologised to the Imam.
At the time of Harun ar-Rashid, he had an appointment in Yemen, as a judge in Najran. Sunnis portray that his devotion to justice, even when it meant criticizing the governor, caused him some problems, and he was taken before the Caliph, falsely accused of aiding the Alawis in a revolt. At this time, al Shaybani was the chief justice, and his defense of ash-Shafi'i, coupled with ash-Shafi'i’s own eloquent defense, convinced Harun ar-Rashid to dismiss the charge, and to direct al Shaybani to take ash-Shafi'i to Baghdad. In Baghdad, he developed his first madhab, influnced by the teachings of both Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Malik. Thus, his work there is known as “al Madhab al Qadim lil Imam as Shafi’i,” or the Old School of ash-Shafi'i.
The case of the persecution faced by Imam Ahmad is different from the previous cases for several reasons. Firstly (and this may just be a result of my own reading choices) but it seems that his suffering is more well-known than the above-mentioned cases. Secondly (and this might explain the first difference) Imam Ahmad's persecution is much more theological than political.
Under the reign of the Caliph at the time, Al-Ma'mun, a "heretical" Mu'tazilite theology become dominant and the religious authorities persecuted the orthodox scholars who disagreed including Imam Ahmad.
For refusing to follow the theology Al-Ma'mun tried to impose, Imam Ahmad was put in irons and was ordered to be delivered into the Caliph's presence. On the way, Imam Ahmad supplicated to Allah to prevent him from meeting Al-Ma’mun. His prayer was answered in the sudden death of al-Ma’mun. Unfortunately, the Inquisition continued into the reign of the next two caliphs and Imam Ahmad endured flogging, imprisonment and exile during this period. But with the death of the Caliph Al-Wathiq and the rise of the new Caliph Al-Mutawakkil, the persecution ended and Imam Ahmad regained some measure of freedom.
MORRISON: [reading] "I am curious about the language of religion, which has become more pronounced in this Administration. Can you comment on the manipulation of religious belief and language for violent ends?"
WEST: That's one of the most dangerous features of our moment, there's no doubt about that. We live in a society in which 96 percent of our fellow citizens believe in God, and 72 percent believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, 71 percent believe that the Book of Revelation has an empirically verifiable potential and 71 percent believe in angels. I don't put that down, I'm a Christian myself, but I'm a different kind of Christian than a lot of these Christians.
[...]
WEST: [...] the other side of this thing is that here we are, living in the biggest empire since the Roman Empire. Now the underside of the Roman Empire is the cross; that's why political prisoners were put to death, those who had the courage to act against the powers that be. We're the legatees of Constantinian Christianity, after Christianity was incorporated into the Roman Empire and was the official religion of the Roman Empire, which went on persecuting Jews and others.
Now, you see, I'm a prophetic Christian, I'm not a Constantinian Christian. That's very important. Because I want to raise the question, well, if you're going to talk about Jesus, did you really talk about the empire that put him to death and what the connection is between that empire and the empire that we're a part of now, and what Jesus demands of us in this empire given what he was willing to sacrifice in his own imperial moment? And I say now, Gibson, what have you got to say? But, he says, no, I'm going to give you sadomasochistic voyeurism.
Justice
That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.
I am suggesting that the primary test for the "truth value" of particular Christian descriptions and their resurrection claim is their capacity to facilitate the existential appropriate of Jesus Christ. This means that any "true" Christian description makes the Reality of Jesus Christ available, that it promotes and encourages the putting of oneself on the line, going to the edge of life's abyss and finding out whether the Reality of Jesus Christ... can sustain and support, define and develop oneself in one's perennial struggle of becoming a fuller and more faithful self in Christ.
In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become a part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed. This means that we are going to have to learn to think in radical terms. I use the term radical in its original meaning - getting down to and understanding the root cause. It means facing a system that does not lend itself to your needs and devising means by which you change that system. That is easier said than done. But one of the things that has to be faced is, in the process of wanting to change that system, how much have we got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going... I am saying as you must say, too, that in order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, but we must understand where we have been.-Ella Baker