Can Muslims trust Obama?
Question:
There is a lot of Islamophobia, especially now, and he’s in a difficult place getting us (Americans) used to the name Hussein. People often turn up to rallies with a rose, following on from the quote from Romeo and Juliet which says "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Answer:
I’m going to follow on from her point, and I’m not homophobic, but I want to share a strategy that the gay community used, and I use this approach in da’wa, but their thinkers took this to a new level. There are five fundamental outcomes of your outreach: 1 – a person will say, I want to join you, for instance, I want to become a Muslim. 2 – I find you intriguing, I want to read more, learn more, etc. 3- The person says, I learned about you and I’ve noted that you’re normal, you’re just like any other people – any other religion . 4 – I was impacted upon by your outreach, and I know what your beliefs are, but it’s not for me; the long clothes and no drinking but I could never be a tea-totaller, so I’m out. Then there’s a fifth person who says, I hate you. I hate what you believe, I hate your principles, and I fear you, your dangerous ideas.
What the gay community was able to do, strategically is to identify the four positive outcomes and to have them turn together and say that this person who is anti the principles that we are about, and they are a bigot, they’re racist, they’re intolerant, and we won’t accept them.
This is our challenge; to say ‘ok, I’m not a Muslim but I’m fascinated by the nation of Muslims and Islam and so on and so on, and I think they’re OK.’ And another person will say they’re all the same, it’s just a regular religion and hey, people have a choice etc.’ But them to stand together and say we will stand by and let people be Islamophobic, homophobic, racist, we’re not going to tolerate it. They were able to do that. And that is our challenge. People of da’wa think that the outcome is to turn everyone into a Muslim and that will turn the tide. That was not the case in Yathrib, at the time of the Prophet (saw), it was not the case in Andalusia, it was not the case in so many civilisations that Islam had impacted upon. It took hundreds of years in some societies for Muslims to become 50% of the population but they had those four sections of the population to say ‘we will not have racists and bigots and sexists to have dominance over people who are fair minded, reasonable and rational.’
Question:
When Tony Blair was young and campaigning, he had nice smiles, full of hope and new ideas, and so on, and look how he turned out. Is it the same with this candidate? Obama isn’t anti-Islamic but George Bush said he wasn’t, and look at his policies.
The second point is surely it will not benefit the Muslim Ummah if America focuses only on its internal policies.
Answer:
For me, again, I’m not putting my faith in the Government. My faith is in Allah, I don’t believe in the Government. If I believed in the Government, then we would have been involved in the civil rights movement. Slavery – my people were slaves, I don’t know if you know that, we did not rely on the good will of the Government to get us out of slavery. We organised internally and externally to end slavery. Now what your idea would have been would be to get out of the abolitionist movement. Eventually the United States Government will fall under its own weight and you’ll be free. In 1607 my people would still be labouring under slavery and involuntary servitude if it was left up to the Government to collapse. Now in your own personal environment you have the right to make that decision. For me, I’m not willing to make that decision. I’m willing to challenge the Government based on my principles to change. Now with regard to Muslim governments that are despotic and tyrannical I believe it’s the obligation of the Muslims who live there – and this is a principle in Fiqh – I can’t make legislation for the people who live in Palestine and Iraq, their scholars have to make their own determinations based on their own political realities, how they should function, and we in America have the right under what we call Usūl, to make our own decisions with our own scholars about how we respond. You in the UK, knowing your political realities, have to make your own decisions, and Alhamdulillah, this has been the great success of the amūr of the Prophet (saw), that we can be diversified in our establishment of what’s right and forbidding what’s wrong. Our Fiqh allows us to work on our own thing and by the way, this is 9/11 commentary.
People who came from other places to the United States to help us resolve our own problems with our government because they were unable to resolve their problems with their government, had it backwards. They should have worked on their tyrants and we should have worked on our tyrants.
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