Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed Speaks

Our Islam requires something special of us in these Times. That is to say, our faith makes for us special requirements, and focused, conscious conduct under difficult circumstances in order that leadership for what is humanly correct can be established even under the Times of Impulse-Driven leaders. We are commanded by Allah, the Most High. He is our Commander, let there be no doubt, and His Command is His Mercy on us. And the Creation and the Command are for Him, as the Qur’an says. This means that His Command is a distinct matter from His Creation. And that HIs Creation no matter how mighty it may think itself to be, how educated and forthright it may become, it cannot manipulate or control His Command.

In other words, we may have an informed opinion but it does not lessen the degree of devotional intensity we should obligate ourselves to in obeying Allah’s Command. His Respect for the human life He created is such that He allows circumstances for us to qualify for His Mercy. The rains are a Mercy. American institutional leadership wants to change the rains from Mercy to callousness and bring on the flood and the flight of ravens in the culture. We will fight it. We have nothing to do with it, but to fight it.

I witnessed a pious, learned man with the true and informed faith refuse a head covering to allow the rain to touch the top of his head. He said to me, “I have gotten wet for much less important occasions than this. The rain is a Sign of Allah’s Mercy.” It was a special occasion as I sat immediately next to him. He met the Pope of Rome that day and with it and so many cherished years of wise and principled instruction and leadership came a gentle rain of Mercy on a native Muslim People of America. The rains of Mercy continue on us, even while the rains of callousness engulf America.

In the matter of the murder of Breonna Taylor, the African-American Attorney General of Kentucky makes a critical error when he diminishes the natural expression of the collective soul that recognizes injustice when it is witnessed. He needs someone to tap him on the shoulder not with congratulations but with the universal and Islamic lesson that when intellect is absent, nature leads. He confuses the purity of justice that is discerned first in the collective soul’s conscience, with his circumstantial political ambition. He barters irreplaceable, sacred, innocent life for a spotlight of racial buffoonery before a callous white-supremacist agenda. We know that in this world, or the next, the corrupted system-supported murderers will meet Justice.

“Do not let the hatred of others make you swerve from upholding justice. Be just, it is akin to piety.” The statement from Guidance. The Book of Ordinance. The Book of G’d’s Command. The Book that defines the sacred Justice -the Holy Qur’an. And the one it was sent down to is called the “Mercy to the Worlds” (or Systems of Knowledge). When we refuse Allah’s Mercy, and by reasoning, the Just Order of Mercy that He created human life for, then human society knows only callousness. The rains become extreme and harsh, and only the bitter, loud, argumentative, callous ravens find a home.

How cowardly it is to find the agents of a so-called justice system, who in their African-American selves have stood and flourished upon the achievements of former champions for Justice, and yet stand before the world with superficial, ready-made “lights-on, action” smiles while announcing to the world and attempting to justify a vile, bitter injustice. You are among the worst of the slavish fools. The one that trades right for wrong in the interest of satisfying the need to relieve the weight of a lingering, self-hate. 

We want the society to be fit for the dove to bring us back the olive branch after the flood, and eventually for him to land and have his home in a just, peaceful order. We will work for it. We are determined beyond the flesh existence. It is a matter in the soul, and I am not a resident of Louisville, Kentucky. But one from our line was, the great Muhammad Ali. As he would point to his faith and tradition as motivation to stand for justice, we will fight back for it.

These words are not from a Christian leader. I am a leader of Muslims in America, in the true tradition of al-Islam and the finest Muslim-American leadership. Though we are not credited, our tradition is in so many ways the benefactors for the rules of Justice and its upliftment in this society. We are obligated by faith in the Command of G’d, and the rule of the Just Order to be witnesses for Justice. And so we are witnesses to Justice against what has happened in Louisville, Kentucky in the matter of the murder of Breonna Taylor. And it is our nature and our soul that brings us to this recognition - not Kentucky residency.