QUESTION: As-Salaam Alaikum Daddy. Will you share your thoughts on the recent violence in El-Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio on the eamspeaks website so people can read it?
IMAM EARL ABDULMALIK MOHAMMED: As-Salaam Alaikum our daughter. Yes, I will share it. We want to express our sympathy to the families who are suffering because of these acts. We, that is, the people of faith in G'd look to G'd for answers and understanding in all of what is unclear or appears senseless. Loss of innocent life hurts the sensitive soul. These acts of violence appear so senseless in and of themselves. They are so hurtful to the hearts and minds and souls of true human beings. As you know, we have strong family ties in Dayton, and so we are particularly sensitive to what has happened there. I listened to the mayor of El-Paso speak and he described his city and the region as one rich with the treasures of a diversity of culture that even precedes the forming of the United States as a nation and Texas as a state. That really got my attention. I hope that one of our supporters might get this to him. I could hear in his voice the quality of his leadership and his love for his fellow citizens and concern for the families affected. I could also hear his wisdom in addressing the potential causes. He was not quick to point at any one problem. His emphasis was on the integrity of his community.
I do not want to make this a long commentary. It is not appropriate to speak at length at this time, and coming from where I am now. G'd-willing, in an address, I plan to speak to this more at length. But, what I want to emphasize here now is that these acts are driving our attention to something. These acts are driving the world's attention to something. It is not only the horror of the acts themselves that I am speaking of. It is the pressure and the force that is pushing us to recognize, to see something in the life of human community on this earth. Our Holy Book, the Qur'an, mentions that the human sight will be driven to a point of perfect clarity of sight, to see the fires of Hell. It doesn't say in that reference that you will enter Hell, it says that you will see Hell with clarity of sight. This is not a picture of destruction only. Hell is not destruction in this reference, it is the image of a punishing condition.
The acts of individuals who have a specific, deliberate kind of thinking that has been influenced by the pressure created by the movements and decisions of government, business-industry-commercial, cultural, and religious leadership, are bringing the entire world's attention to the reality and threat of a hell-like condition for human innocence on the earth. No reasonable-minded person will accept that these are random acts. These acts reflect much thought and planning, driven by influences coming from high places. These acts are intended and encouraged. Not intended and encouraged only by the those committing them, but by those influencing them. They are intending to usher in another reality for man's existence. This reality has been predicted by wise people from antiquity. Mankind is being driven by strategic forces to see its Conclusion in one vision by deliberate forces and deliberate planning that includes as a part of its strategy a global witnessing to the spilling of innocent blood. It is a robbery of man's innocence to bring a specific kind of existence for man on the earth.
To conclude this, let me just say that consciousness of the good, decent, innocent life that respects human, moral purpose and human life, and the aid coming from those inspired to act in that consciousness on behalf of that innocence, are the salvation from where these acts want to drive us. As Muslims we refer to this as taqwa. But, for others that are not familiar with what that means exactly, it is in this context, to call upon each other to defend what is best in all of us as a human community and to involve what we understand to be our best human motivations and sentiments. People who believe in G'd refer to it as fear of G'd or regardfulness of G'd. It is to call upon what is most beautiful in us that we all share that we know we could not have without G'd giving it to us.
That is sufficient for now. I am thinking that a hint to the wise is sufficient.