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Have Some DIGNITY Oh Muslims! - ICNA Keynote Address by Dr. Omar Suleiman
Mahmoud. Leqaa. Dr. Khan Suri. They imprisoned their bodies, but not their minds. True activism is rooted in fearlessness, as Dr. Omar Suleiman highlights in this powerful message on standing up to those complacent and complicit with oppression.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
There's a sentence that I want you to remember and I actually want you to repeat it to me insha'Allah ta'ala.
Can you all do that? Repeat after me. There is da'wah in dignity.
One more time so that you repeat it to yourself insha'Allah ta'ala again. There is da'wah in dignity.
When we look into our religion and when we look into our history and when we locate ourselves in the moment that we are in right now,
I want to take you back to a conversation with Al-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz Malcolm X (رحمه الله تعالى), who would have been a hundred years old this week.
Can you imagine Malcolm at a hundred years old? The martyr is frozen in our memory at the age that he was taken from us.
But with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, their sacrifices are written and their place is assured.
Malcolm was asked in an interview in 1964 to walk us through why and how he embraced Islam.
And he said that the real reason for my embracing Islam is one that people actually are not privy to.
He takes us back to his prison cell where so many of our brothers and sisters languish today.
Where hopelessness is the order of the day, where you are meant to be broken psychologically, emotionally, spiritually and physically.
And he takes us through how he was looking for books and writings and undoubtedly starting to come into contact with the Nation of Islam.
But as he was looking through the various books in the library in prison, he couldn't find a seerah book of the Prophet (ﷺ).
And when you think back to the 1940s and 50s, what book of seerah existed in English? Can you imagine? There wasn't a book of seerah in English for him to find.
And so he had to parse through to see these episodes of the life of the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) through these scattered books of history.
And then as he was looking through these scattered books of history and coming into contact with the triumph of the Prophet (ﷺ) after his difficulty,
he says, and I quote, the real reason for my adopting Islam was reading about Salahuddin and his victory over the Crusaders
and reading about the triumph of the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). I had been eager to find dignity and strength until I found it in that religion.
Malcolm found dignity and strength in reading through the pages of scattered books about the victory of Salahuddin and how he carried himself in victory,
about the victory of the Prophet (ﷺ) and how he carried himself.
And undoubtedly, his contact with the Nation of Islam and this idea of the empowerment of the black man in a country that breaks down every element of a black human being,
it all came together for him until Allah (ﷻ) crystallized his creed and he left this world as Al-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz. May Allah accept him as a shaheed. Allahumma ameen.
Dear brothers and sisters, as Hajj begins this week, you will see the pilgrims that will enter into the haram and the right shoulders of the men will be uncovered in what is known as idtiba',
the practice of idtiba' where the Prophet (ﷺ) taught us in tawaf al-qudum, in the entry tawaf, whether you're doing umrah or where you're going for hajj, to uncover the right shoulder in a show of strength.
And he encouraged (ﷺ) that in the first three rounds of tawaf there is al-raml, which is to walk with a faster pace.
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) taught the Muslims to do that because it was meant to be a show of strength to the oppressors who had barred them from Mecca before that the Muslims were not weak.
That the Muslims had not lost their sense of dignity, that the Muslims had not wavered in their strength, that the Muslims were a people of honor and that they would continue to show their strength in their rituals.
Our history teaches us honor and even our rituals teach us resilience.
And that's what the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) taught us even in one of the pillars of Islam, that there's strength, there's dignity, there's honor and you show that to your oppressor.
Allah says, wa a'iddu lahum ma istata'tum min quwwah Prepare yourself with strength and show them the strength that you have.
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) looked out before one of the battles and his companion Abu Dujanah (رضي الله عنه), the man of the red bandana, who would take a red bandana and he would tie it on his head before a battle would start.
And then he would strut in front of the enemy before the duel began. Subhan Allah. Wa 'ibad ar-Rahman alladhina yamshuna 'ala al-ardi hawna Allah says,
And the servants of the Most Merciful, they tread the earth lightly with humility. Wa idha khatabahum al-jahiluna qalu salama When the ignorant and the foolish address them, they respond with salam.
Luqman al-Hakim tells his son to walk in a certain way, to speak in a certain way, not to demonstrate arrogance. And there are multiple ayat and ahadith in this regard.
But Abu Dujanah (رضي الله عنه) would strut before the battle. And the Prophet (ﷺ) said what?
Allah hates this type of walking except in situations like this. This is not the normal order of the believer.
This is not the way that the believer carries himself with his non-Muslim neighbor who's not hostile to him. This is not the way that the believer carries himself with those who are kind.
Not at all. The believer matches and exceeds kindness, demonstrates humility, responds with salam. But there is a time and a place where that type of walk is warranted.
And the premise of this talk, there is da'wah in dignity. And I tell you why I choose to address this tonight in particular in this blessed gathering.
A conversation that I was having with a beautiful brother. And we have to learn to appreciate that in our community, sometimes there are differing perspectives that arise from sincerity.
And we have to be willing to have those conversations with each other. Not from a place of fear, nor from a place of arrogance.
Not because we believe in the power of anyone over us other than Allah (ﷻ). Or because we so desire to boast and lean into our ego rather than our iman.
But we can have discussions amongst ourselves sometimes about what's the best way to address a particular situation.
And we were talking about the interruptions and the disruptions that are taking place in hotel ballrooms,
in political rallies, in the halls of Congress, at Microsoft gatherings, at different company gatherings where the companies are complicit in genocide.
And the premise of the discussion was, is it good da'wah? Is it good da'wah for us to disrupt?
Because you can see the looks on the faces of the people that are sitting in the crowd. When a Muslim stands up, or a person of conscience stands up, but usually a Muslim stands up.
And starts to confront a CEO on stage. Or starts to confront a morally bankrupt politician on stage.
You can see the rest of the gathering go, sometimes they boo. You can see the politician get frustrated and flustered.
You can see the heads of these companies start to use dismissive and condescending language. Remember, I'm talking now.
You get all of these types of situations and he was contending, but also asking from a place of sincerity. Is this good da'wah?
And that led us into an important discussion. Is it good da'wah? Is da'wah always smiling in the face of someone?
Is da'wah always showing someone that humility and kindness? Or is there actually da'wah in responding to evil and oppression with strength?
Even if it makes those who are complicit in oppression directly or indirectly uncomfortable. My contention is that that's good da'wah.
My contention is that let them feel the weight of their shamelessness the way that we feel the weight of our pain.
My contention is that those gathering should see us as unwavering, as unwilling to sit by in silence.
And watch them massacre our brothers and sisters and play polite in our faces. And tell us to succumb to the order of the day and to be complacent and to be quiet.
And to be quiet and to operate within their prescribed protests. And to go through the back door or private route. And to do all of the things that keep them comfortable in their oppression.
While we have to sit there and watch our brothers and sisters be slaughtered. My contention is that it's good da'wah to make them uncomfortable. It's good da'wah to stand up to them. It's good da'wah to shame them.
It's good da'wah to disrupt them. Because somebody else is watching too. It's not just the shameless oppressor.
It's the conflicted observer that is watching this world play out in the way that it is.
And that's wondering, is there not a single way in which you can challenge this oppression? With dignity. With honor.
And so let me offer my disclaimer. I am not calling for political violence from this stage. Just in case, because we know how we love to be taken out of context.
But when you stand up in the face of these people. And you let them know that the Muslims will penalize you at the booth and for your bankrupt politics.
We will disrupt your company's order of business. And we will make sure that you feel the anger of those who are outraged by a genocide that you are perpetuating.
That that's a part of our da'wah. And that's actually a value add to the discourse that exists in this country. That we refuse to be silenced.
That we operate out of faith. That we organize ourselves. And that when a shameless Zionist politician comes to your masjid, they get booed out of the masjid.
And they don't get the photo op opportunity that they've been used to for all of these years. That we let them know that we're not okay.
That we let them know that you're not going to come to us and pretend to care about us here while killing us over there. And not just our brothers and sisters, them. No, you're killing us over there.
Our flesh and our blood smells and feels the same in Gaza as it does here in the streets of the United States. And we don't differentiate between our own children and them.
You can't be for bombing every single masjid in Gaza and then coming to a masjid here and talking about how you care about Islamophobia and protecting the Muslim community here.
All you care about is protecting your name and protecting your interests. And we're not going to smile in the face of that hypocrisy. We will shun it and shame it. And that's da'wah as well.
There is da'wah in dignity. We have to turn a page, dear brothers and sisters. We have to turn a page. That means that we do things differently now.
That means that we recognize the collective strength that we have. That means that we're not afraid to say that we will organize and that we will carry our weight as a Muslim community. And that we understand,
kam min fi'atin qalilatin ghalabat fi'atan kathiratan bi-idhni Allah
How many times has a small group of people overcome a large group of people by the permission of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? And there are people in this country that are watching as well.
And what interests them in Islam is not your politeness, it's your principle. What interests them in your faith is that it seems unbreakable whereas everything else seems to collapse at the first test.
What interests them in our deen is that the people of Gaza have been put through every form of imaginable hell on earth yet still they stand strong and they say la ilaha illa Allah
And people wonder, why don't I have what they have?
And we have the potential to show people a way not just to resist the oppression in Gaza
but to resist every other form of oppression that is connected to the oppression in Gaza. That faith actually tells you to stand up straight and stand up for your religion.
And that it is mercy that you do not neglect the oppressed in the name of faith. It is mercy that you refuse to let that injustice unfold without doing every single thing that you possibly can.
That it is in fact cruelty, it is cruelty to say that those people should accept the reality that they are in
and every oppressed people should simply take it on the chin because that's what God decreed for them
while pretending that God did not give you the ability and decree for you a path forward to where you can actually meaningfully uplift them.
Dear brothers and sisters, I want to come to something at home that hits close.
Unfortunately, we often wait until the American Muslim community feels the brunt of the pain in order to act.
As we watch what's been unfolding in Gaza, many of us feel like we can't do much right now with all of the powers that be.
The feelings of betrayal, the feelings of incapacity. May Allah forgive us all for our inability to do more.
We make du'a, we donate, we protest and we see the situation worsening and it hurts that we can't do more. That's a reality check.
It was never going to be us that would change the situation in the first place. But here's what I do want you to understand.
Your brothers and sisters that are getting picked up right now and intimidated by ICE for doing nothing but standing on principle
despite not having that comfortable American passport.
Your brothers and sisters that have been abducted in the streets in a test case of fascism to see how far the arm of fascism can go before some people hit it back.
Your brothers and sisters who spent some of Ramadan without being able to have iftar and you could do something for them.
You could go to where they are, you could speak for them so that at least the voices of the people of Gaza are not erased on our watch.
Your brothers and sisters who have struggled and sacrificed and many of whom have been forgotten. How many of you have seen and heard of Rumaysa?
May Allah protect Rumaysa. How many of you have seen or heard of Lika Kurdiya?
Very few of you. Lika is a young woman who is in the middle of nowhere in Texas who was picked up from Paterson, New Jersey
and denied the most basic accommodations of her hijab, of her salah, of her dietary restrictions and in that prison economy where they break you and humiliate you.
She was told that if she wanted food, you know they sell food in prison, $3 they'll sell you this little tiny thing of rice
because the actual food that they serve is so disgusting and inedible that it forces you to try to ask someone to put money in your account so you can get that.
And by the way, let's be clear, there are many Muslims unjustly incarcerated, not just those that have been pulled in this recent horrific episode that we are living through now.
Many human beings, innocent people that are incarcerated and perhaps this can turn our attention to all of them, not just those that are most obvious. And Lika is practically unheard of in our community.
She's a Palestinian young woman. You know how I found out about her? How many of you have heard of Dr. Badr Khan Suri?
The Georgetown professor, postdoctoral fellow, who was abducted, his name is Badr and he was abducted on the 17th of Ramadan, the day of Badr, and thrown into that same facility.
Dr. Badr was the one who actually, he and his attorneys, told me about Lika being in that same facility in Texas. She's still there. He came out, walhamdulillah, rabbil 'alameen.
But the government is still intimidating him because they have filed an appeal and it's important that we don't just stand with them for the celebration. You know what it's indicative of?
It's when the person first says, ashhadu an la ilaha illallah, wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah, and everyone says, takbir, Allahu Akbar, and then they're nowhere to be found after that initial shahada.
It's indicative of the first moment of charity where something is put in front of our faces and we feel so driven to it.
And the fundraisers are all over and people are raising their hands, $25,000, $50,000, and then you can barely raise $5,000 for that cause because we got tired of paying attention to that cause, not that it ended.
Likewise, when our brothers and sisters come out of prison, it doesn't mean that their fight is over. All it means is that it's turned a chapter.
And the Prophet (ﷺ) said, wa la in amshi ma'a akhi fee hajah, for me to walk with my brother in need. Not be there with him in the beginning of his need.
To walk with my brother in need is more beloved to me than i'tikaf in this masjid of mine. I'tikaf in the masjid of the Prophet (ﷺ).
When we talk about dignity and Islam being a religion of dignity and there being da'wah in dignity,
our brothers and sisters who have paid with their freedom here are also exercises of that dignity.
And you know what's powerful? Not a single one of them, after being in prison and intimidated and beat down emotionally, psychologically, said,
you know, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have protested, I should have been quiet, I should have moved away from this all, I should have listened. Each and every single one of them stood up.
You read Mahmoud's letters from prison. You see Noor, may Allah (ﷻ) bless her, the wife of Mahmoud, standing in front of that facility in Jena, Louisiana.
The place where if you read about the history of white supremacy, the Jena 6 and so much that has happened in that area. Standing out there in front of the barbed wire just a few weeks after having given birth to her baby,
still leading a chant of free Palestine. Mahmoud advocating on behalf of the other prisoners that are in there. Dr. Badr speaking about all of those who have been in there and saying that if they wanted to silence me,
they shouldn't have put me in prison because now all they've done is they've activated me. Dear brothers and sisters, when I met Dr. Badr in prison, he was wearing a red suit.
And those of you that are familiar with these detention centers, these prison facilities, you know that a red suit means the highest degree of a felon. It's reserved for murderers and serial killers.
They put a postdoctoral fellow from Georgetown in a red suit because his wife is from Gaza. Alhamdulillah rabbil 'alameen, Dr. Badr is out today. Dr. Badr, can you please come to the stage?
Dr. Badr, his wife, Mafaz, who exhibits exactly what it means to be from Ahl al-Ghaza,
as strong and as determined throughout the entire process as they come, and one of our heroes who happens to be like my height, so he kind of intimidates me,
the attorney, Hassan, who represents the many brave attorneys that have been fighting on behalf of our political prisoners.
I will cede the podium gracefully and ask Dr. Badr to share with us a few words. As-salamu alaykum.
You know, thank you very much. I know for sure that all of you have prayed for me, and alhamdulillah, Allah made it very easy for me.
I was hearing as our esteemed shaykh was saying that I am Badr, and they picked me on the day of Badr. And as shaykh informed me that Badr is never alone, Badr is always with angels.
Whatever they were doing to me, it was very tough, it was very painful, as you all know, that I used to be in chains all over my body. I would not know where they are taking me.
I was not able to talk to my family, my attorneys, for seven, eight, ten days. And it was a very tough phase, but alhamdulillah, it was Ramadan, I was still fasting.
They were not giving me food, I was still fasting, and I was not feeling hungry. I was not feeling hungry. I was always seeing that, alhamdulillah, I have water, it's enough.
They didn't tell me which side is Makkah. I was always praying. Even if I was in chains, I was in a car, I was in an airplane, I was still praying.
And I was always saying, alhamdulillah, it is still easy, I'm still alive, I can do my prayer. These are tough times. We can be feeling fearful. Fear is ferocious, but wallahi, courage is contagious.
Our deen gives us courage. Nothing to fear. When we stand for our rights, we for sure will have beautiful people for our favor.
Like I had my attorney, Hassan Ahmed, and many attorneys. And then I had my university, my community, my people,
and most importantly, when we were sitting on some day when court was not giving orders or something, Shaykh Sulaiman came, and we made du'a. Du'a is such an important blessing Allah has given us.
We were saying, what was that du'a, Shaykh? La ilaha illa anta subhanaka inni kuntu minaz zalimeen.
We made it many times, and wallahi, within few hours, court gave the order. And our success, we were seeing success coming.
And wallahi, believe me, even if Allah is testing us, every soul is tested according to what only it can bear. La yukallifu allahu nafsan illa wus'aha.
This is the truth. Allah has given us a strong religion. We should be faithful, we should have courage, and everything will be right. No need to be fearful, be courageous. Thank you very much.
My wife. Assalamu alaikum, everyone. I remember, Badr told me after spending 60 days in detention center,
the first sentence he told me, if my suffering, because I married to a Palestinian,
and because I talk about the ongoing genocide of Gaza, then I will wear that suffering as a badge of honor.
And he also told me that if I talk about Palestine, and is it a crime, then I carry that guilt with pride.
They tried to target us, to make us afraid, to scare us, to silence us, but they failed.
They will never silence our voice. They will never break our spirit. We will keep talking about Palestine.
We will keep exposing the ugly face of Israeli occupation.
There is a genocide going on in Gaza from 602 days. 53,000 Palestinians were killed in cold blood.
And what they are expecting from us? To be silenced? No. The people of Gaza, they need you. They need your voice.
They need you to tell the world their story. We are not numbers. We are stories. They need you to tell those stories.
They need you to share their pain, to feel their suffering. We will not abandon the people of Gaza.
This is the time. This is the time to act, to expose the ugly face of the Israeli occupation. We shall not abandon the people of Gaza.
We shall be the voice of the voiceless. Free Gaza. Free Palestine. Thank you so much.
I have to stand up in court most days and try my best to speak truth to power.
Because all the opposing government lawyers that I deal with on a daily basis, some of whom I know personally, all think that they are doing the right thing.
They all think that my client, Dr. Badr Khan Suri, who was granted a visa to come here and continue his scholarship
on conflict studies and peace building, is somehow now a threat to the foreign policy of the United States.
And I'm reminded of an ayah in the Quran where Fir'awn, in talking to his people, says ma urikum illa ma ara wa ma ahdikum illa sabil ar-rashad
that I only show you what I see for myself and I only guide you to that which is righteous. But it's twisted, isn't it? It's completely twisted. They've got it backwards.
And those who try to speak up and demand justice and demand a word of truth are themselves put under the magnifying glass,
are themselves put under scrutiny and yanked off the streets like my client Dr. Suri was on the 17th of Ramadan.
Stripped of their dignity, stripped of their security and taken, whisked away, abducted 1,500 miles away from their families, from their counsel,
up to the point where in our case, in Dr. Suri's case, a federal judge found that the primary reason for them to move Dr. Suri from Arlington to Chantilly
to Farmville to Richmond to Alexandria, Louisiana and finally to Alvarado, Texas, was to make it difficult for his attorneys to find him.
This tyranny does not work without an entire apparatus and a group of minions to do the Fir'awn's bidding. So when we stand up to make da'wah, as the shaykh said,
you've got to attack the entire machine. You've got to work against the entire machine. There are lots of people, otherwise good people,
who have been taken in by this wrongful and poisonous ideology which has led them to the conclusion that Dr. Suri is a threat to the foreign policy of the United States.
Let's not let them have the last word. Stand up. Speak. Say, the truth has come and falsehood has vanished. Falsehood has always vanished.
May Allah reward you well.


































































































































































































































































































