As Salaam Alaikum Brother Imam,
I am sure that I speak for many when I say that we are looking forward to our annual observance of Muslim American Leadership Day and your public address in Newark, NJ.
The week before that observance, the Conveners of Imams is sponsoring a Community Development and Leadership Conference in Orlando, FL.
In light of what we are witnessing in terms of natural and social phenomena in the world today, and what Imam W. Deen Mohammed invited us to in as a people devoted to Allah’s Will, what do these events represent in terms of our movement toward the destiny?
Thank you for this question, and As Salaam Alaikum. Praise be to Allah. We pray for His Mercy, His Favor, and His Guidance always. Ameen.
In this moment, heaviest on my mind and heart as I am considering your question is the anguish felt by surviving family members of devastations in Hawaii, and Morocco and Libya. Such anguish is soul-stirring. We pray for the sustained fortitude of first-response personnel and aid workers, their safety and endurance, in delivering life-saving care to victims. We pray for the increased stamina of doctors and nurses. We pray for the patience and wisdom of leaders and governments planning aid missions and controlling resources, that the needs of all who have been affected will be addressed by them justly and expeditiously. We pray to G-d for parents and children, young and elderly. We pray for those whose lives have been defined by poverty, and whose access to essential resources even up until these disasters has been wonting. We pray to G-d for those who have no advocate, that He abate their suffering.
Our office, the Muslim American Ministry for Human Salvation is a US tax exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Anyone wishing to support relief work in any of these areas can send their donation marked ‘Relief for Hawaii’, ‘Morocco’ or ‘Libya’. 100% of it will be forwarded to the reputable relief agency serving the people of the area of the world designated by the donor.
We are grateful to Allah for His Guidance. He says in the Qur’an, the Holy Book of Muslims, that humanity will be witnesses to tumultuous changes in the natural world, so disturbing to the sensitivities that they will remark:
وَقَالَ ٱلْإِنسَٰنُ مَا لَهَا
“What is ailing her (the earth)?”
Disturbances in the natural environment register also as disturbances in the structures of human society. Not only what can be witnessed in the world of physical structures themselves, but more importantly as these disturbances weigh on the soul of Man. They burden the hopes of Man. They allay the planning of Man. It can be said then, that disturbances in the world around us are more accurately a reflection of disturbances in the inner workings of human life in society.
Destruction by fire, wind, water, and earth are as real for the infrastructures of modern society in modern nations, as they are for their counterparts of destructive force in the human soul. Unmanaged passions, influences, sentiments, and possessions can wreak havoc on an individual human soul. And that one damaged soul can destroy a family, a community, and ultimately a whole nation.
The ill-intended destructive bombs of warfare disturb the physical earth and physical structures, but moreso war zones displace human moral sensitivities and the necessary processes that support the cultivation of moral principle needed to sustain human society for its best performance. Assaults on human innocence are moral violations so ladened with destructive power, they can upend a whole People. A corrupted leadership licensing for itself transgression of well-established mores of decency in claim of its authority, utterly destroys the essential values necessary to hold up basic societal structures. It is well-known that no community elementary school can survive as an agent of moral influence if local governments refuse to support free access to literacy programs. If innocence is assaulted at the elementary or fundamental level, there is no promise that higher institutions will ever form.
“A mind is a terrible thing to waste…” unmasks the scheme of a war on the innocent searching of a human soul for its natural support systems. It is The Merciful G-d that Is Benefactor and Redeemer that Created the desire in that soul for the search, the environment to satisfy the curiosity, the energy to sustain the trek, and the answer, resulting establishments, and peaceful satisfaction in realizing the moral Determination requisitioned for it.
America has offered itself to self-destructive fires of immoral force. What ails her?
Likewise, and in addressing your questions, the Muslim-African-American community has slumbered under the artifices of an unprepared, irresponsible, oppressive, destructive, corrupted force. What ails her?
What ails a Muslim-African-American community leadership having been Favored by G-d with a Tradition inextricably aligned with the great and determined moral forces of the Ages? What ails a Muslim-African-American Community leadership aided directly by G-d through His inspiration in the determination of their oppressed slave ancestors? What ails a Muslim-African-American community leadership aided by the support of a special strategy and then clarified view and grasp of Divine Guidance -the Qur’an, and the universal model of human excellence -Muhammed the Prophet?
What ails a Muslim-African American leadership that justifies allowing itself to be videotaped by Israeli television praying at the Wall in Jerusalem and thusly characterized before the Muslim world as its agent for an oppressive Israeli-regime style, self-serving, unjust peace? The answer is the Self-Destructive Force of an unmanaged, unregulated, out of control passion for ego recognition. That force has blinded its leadership’s memory, deafened its hearing, and thoroughly corrupted its connection to their late leader who was the friend of Palestinian moral determination and a just peace. That force has stricken them with a kind of arrogant insanity that bars them from comprehending the far-reaching implications of their ignorant actions.
Just a thoughtful, humble review of Imam W. Deen Mohammed’s historic visit to the Occupied Territories would have cautioned their moral senses to not be manipulated into such a damaging display - an extremely costly example of the quaking destructive forces that occur in crippling the moral conscience of whole communities. I ask Allah to excuse them their ignorance because they are insane, and it is an insanity caused by these horribly destructive forces that can operate in the soul of man if unchecked. Islam teaches that G-d excuses acts of insanity, and that insanity excuses all bad decisions and behavior, unpunishable. Our prayer is also that they regain sanity and find the self-respect to recuse themselves from leadership authority until they have been cleared by the judgment of those with an intact and functioning Islamic moral conscience.
I am praying for the Conveners of Imams that have called for a Community Development and Leadership Conference that they are not also stricken by the same destructive forces. My prayer is for their Success.