Question: As Salaam Alaikum Imam. Do you have any opinion on the current discussion involving Kanye West, Kyrie Irving and Louis Farrakhan?
Answer: Yes, I have an opinion. The question is whether I want to express that opinion or should I express it. My answer is no I do not want to express it, nor do I think I should. Muslim leaders, and I would think all responsible leadership have the obligation to weigh and interpret the situation in the best interest of Truth, accountability, implications, and outcomes.
Our first obligation is to decency before G-d, and behavior and thinking befitting a Muslim. We must not respond to any issue just with what we think are objective facts only, without considering the way in which what we think are facts are presented. How many times do we see people associated with religion act on what they believe is truth and come away from those actions guilty before G-d and before human society? Truth is the victim here. Manipulation of truth by all those parties you mentioned are what to me is in serious question.
The higher obligation in my mind and spirit as a Muslim is to the rule of decency with G-d as a witness verifying that decency. I know from G-d’s Guidance in the Qur’an how to identify the devil. I Know exactly where he is. I know his attributes. And I seek G-d’s protection against him and his tribe. From G-d’s Guidance and Protection in that Guidance I know the devil’s reach. I know his targets. I know where he wants to be in the world and in my life, and in the life of human creation and human society.
With all of that awareness that is supported by the knowledge revealed in Divine Guidance, does Allah invite me anywhere to unmask the devil? Does He ask me to identify him in his hiding place? Does he ask me to name him? The wrong answer to these questions will lead a person and whole societies to their own destruction. And Allah says in the Qur’an do not make your hands a cause for your own destruction. We should be more a people acting in the spirit of decency and social excellence under G-d’s Authority. Leaders and personalities that influence us to not recognize our own obligations do us great harm.
What I would like to say is that time is out for just blaming the influences of myth and its burdens on human life as reason for our own bad performance and neglect. Once you become aware that myth and its language oppresses the ignorant, well then you have the obligation to behave as an intelligent person to free yourself from the burden of the myth.
Time is out for the type of moral and emotional weakness where you can justify a kind of intellectual play in the environment of the myth -you toy with it and amuse yourself with it or you feign some false indignation toward its existence while you benefit in some way from that play or from an association with the myth, but you don’t accept any responsibility for the outcome or product of your play or your association. You are a willing participant in the aim of the myth when it benefits you, and a high-minded activist against it when it threatens your comforts.
Frankly I don’t believe that G-d even accepts to hear the plea of an ungrateful people who have more the spirit to blame and cry out when the very fire they have been toying with burns them; and when they have not performed anywhere near their social obligations according to their own best moral traditions that warn them against the spirit of excessive play in this life. And especially after we have had leaders in our recent memory as the Honorable Elijah Mohammed and his son Imam W. Deen Mohammed to help us navigate the troubles and schemes against us in this world created by myth.
The Honorable Elijah Mohammed was the first storekeeper of the Nation of Islam. He was the first stock clerk and cashier and customer service agent and also the first butcher of the Nation of Islam’s grocery store. He sought the help of a Jewish man to help him with preparing the meats that were sold at that store. The Honorable Elijah Mohammed was a sincere and devoted man to helping the black man, so-called Negro stand up in is own social responsibility and excellence.
There is a verse in the Qur’an that explains something of our interest in meat as Muslims, and in that verse is also a reference to Islam as G-d’s preference for mankind as religion. A wise person will reflect on these matters. And his reflection will yield a principled point of view as to those who attempt to make truth with their own hands and try to pass it off as coming from G-d. We can’t chew or digest that. And It is not because something is wrong with our teeth. Our teeth have been cut on Faith and Guidance in the best tradition. The tradition of Muhammed the Prophet and the way of W. Deen Mohammed. So it isn’t our teeth that are bad. We can’t chew or digest it because the cuts of meat presented to us by icons created by myth are not fit for us to eat to live.