On Spring 2007, King Abudllah II of Jordan came to Congress to address his concerns over the Middle East. Once he was finished he said “asalamwalaikum” (peace be upon you), and out of nowhere there was a voice that yelled “walaikumasalam” (and peace be upon you). The entire Congress became dead silent. The voice, Keith Ellison, is the first Muslim in the United States Congress. As the rest of the chamber stared at him, he simply played it off.

This is a cool story, but I like making blog posts that have some sort of meaning to them because I’m not famous enough to talk about my day and have people want to read it. Lets highlight on some things Ellison has said done:

• Became the first Muslim Congressman.
• Became the first Black Congressman from Minnesota (thats two firsts)
• Became the first man to use a Quran (Thomas Jefferson’s Quran too) to swear into office (thats three)
• Became the first man to be involved in an Islamic exchange (thats four firsts!)
• Remained cool under pressure when people like Glenn Beck asked “prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.”
• Still used the Quran to swear into office amid pressure in Congress by many Congressman, particularly Virgil Goode.

Lets see what he has SAID about about Islam:

• I am “not qualified to represent a world religion.“

Muslims in general are known for complaining about discrimination, hate, and Islamophobia. After reading blogs and forums for 3 years, this is definitely a consensus I am willing to assert. Many people on the internet are trying to “spread Islam” and talk about how the US is bad etc etc. Organizations like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) file lawsuits as if it was a vampire needing to suck blood to survive. My school’s MSA (Muslim Students Association) only does about 1 event every year called the fast-a-thon as their reaching out program. I was there and don’t think even 50 people showed up, most of them being Muslim. For a school with an Islamic Studies degree and 54,000 students, you would expect more. Even the HSC (Hindu Students Committee) already has about 5 major events this year, 2 of which had a huge non Hindu show up (at least 100 Non-Hindus, 1000 Hindus). Can’t Muslims at least do better than a smaller minority than themselves? We have become a religion with an image similar to that of the Nation of Islam, all me “Mooslams do is tawk” (from the Malcolm X 1992 Movie).

The point is, Muslims should look up to Keith Ellison for inspiration in interfaith relations. As center of attention for American Muslims in the last couple of months, who has been discriminated against, hated against, threatened, and treated unfairly. Yet he kept his ground and not once did he crack or submit to the racism. I believe that Muslims should take more action, instead of complain all the time. This means that they need to do things that actually address the Non Muslim community and catch their attention. Work on civil rights (not through mindless lawsuits), clean communities up, be a model of behavior, etc. Those who just post on forums and websites need to know that ignorant people are on the streets, not really on the web (there are a few but not nearly as many as there are in public). They need to, as I said in my last post, enter the mud.

I don’t want to be a hypocrite, so I will explain myself too. This blog isn’t really meant for idiots. The posts are too long, they refer to Islamic practices in foreign ways sometimes, and they are very blunt and not strategic when it comes to interfaith relations. Even muslimonline.org isn’t entirely meant for idiots. Throughout my life, the only place where I have taken major action is against poverty, starting organizations, holding rallies, etc. Just recently I have converted to taking action for Muslims, and I am working on some stuff right now, like a movie that is about Muslims but is meant to address stupid non Muslims. Basically, I am devising some ways to take Apple style advertsing, and applying it to Islam. More to come soon.

All in all, my point is this: if you truly care about Muslims and Islam, you need to take action, even if it involves taking risks.

“We declare our right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.”
- Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X)

PS: I promise I’ll try to make my future posts shorter.

Many of you were asking about what I did with the guy who assaulted me just because I was Muslim. Well, the next day I began to think of some options:

1. Tell a teacher
2. Tell the police
3. Tell my parents
4. Ignore it and move on with life
5. Attack him
6. Play a prank on him
7. Fix his racist mind by preaching
8. Fix his racist mind by befriending

Well, I was very traumatized by the entire situation, and I became a pansy. I would avoid him at all costs the entire year because I was so afraid of him. Later this fear would turn into hatred through the works of some Al Qaeda supporters (a story for another time). Anyway, after a few years I was finally in High School, and came across a similar situation again on my Ice Hockey team. As the only non-white guy on the team, I obviously had to take a lot of crap. But this time, I decided that I wanted to do choice 8 above. I began to take their racist crap, but I went along with it. I became friends with them. I would eat with them, play Halo with them, and would go along with their jokes. I would make a few terrorist jokes myself. What happened was that these guys began to trust me. Then, strategically, one day when we were talking about beating people up I mentioned that I was beat up just because of my religion. Everyone in the locker room in unison said “thats f***ed up!” My teammates instantly began asking me questions, and then becuase the topic was serious they would seriously ask me what Muslims believe. I would tell them about the One true God, and I would say many other good things about Muslims. To keep them entertained I would pop in a few lines “Akon is Muslim” and “System of a Down is Muslim”. In the end, everyone left that locker room knowing more about Islam than ever before, even though most of these people took AP World History where we spent a week just on Islam. From that they on, they would still joke, but on a day to day basis I saw that they had respect for Muslims, a respect that wasn’t there before.

Ignorance is like a pig. To kill the pig you must enter the mud. I went into the mud, and I killed pig.

All good I do is due to Allah. All bad I do is of my own doing. If I did good here, it was only though the grace of the Almighty. If my technique was bad, then may Allah forgive me for my mistake. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the World.

CNN has a report about a Malaysian company making “Islamic Cars” for countries like Iran. These will have features such as a compass to point to Makkah and compartments for storing Quran’s and hijabs. The company, called Proton, has been suffering major losses in the past few years and probably hopes to use Islamic sentiment to get their profits up. Personally I think its cool they are making an Islamic Car, but I really don’t think the Muslim community should commend this company for anything big because their intentions are to avoid bankruptcy, not to help the Muslim community. Personally, I don’t find the initial details of this car to make it seem Islamic at all. In my opinion, an “Islamic” car should be a car that does minimal damage to the environment (like a hybrid) because Muslims are supposed to preserve Mother Earth. Also, whats the point of a compass and a Quran if you can’t pray in the car or do ablution? Many Muslims already have compartments for hijabs and compasses for that point to Makkah anyway. What many Muslims need is a car that can have its seats go all the way to make make prayer easy, heavily tinted windows and automatic window shields for privacy while praying, and a place to for some water and portable sink for ablution. If a car had all of that and was environmentally friendly, I would probably buy one.

At least some companies recognize that religions exists though in a time where countries are being very hostile to all religions.

We all remember what we were doing on September 11, 2001. I myself was going to my 7th grade English class like any other day. The instant I enter class my teacher I hear the second tower collapsing on the radio. It was a shocking day for me no doubt, but what was to come shocked me more.

On September 13, 2001 I went to my gym class as usual. We were all dressing out, and I took my shirt off getting ready to put on my gym uniform. Someone taps my shoulder. I turn around. I wake up.

I sat on the floor drenched in my blood contemplating what just happened. After my headache calmed down I remembered that the punk who tapped my shoulder ripped my glasses off and knocked me out. I remember getting hit like it was a scene in Fight Club or something. In the midst of this reminiscence I realized that my coach was watching me with concern and trying to give me water. He asked me what happened. I said I fell. I realize now that figuratively that was the truth. From that day Muslims all around America fell from the grace of civil liberties.

Later on I asked a few people why that white kid assulted me. They all had the same reply. “It’s cause your people killed our people.” Great. I’m not American anymore. Sounds familiar. Black people around the country went through this same struggle in the early 20th Century. They had a name too, and that name was Nigger. From that day on I inherited the name that was given to those who lacked liberty so long ago. I became an American Nigger. Or more appropriately, and American Sand Nigger.

There is a lot of controversy over what the word nigger means. To me, nigger is anyone who is a second class American. No one can deny that the Patriot Act made Muslims second class citizens. Muslims are the new Native American. The new Irish. The new Black man. And today we share this struggle alongside the Latinos.

Some people will read this post and be like “It is our American duty to give up a few civil rights for the sake of the security.” I finish with a quote by one America’s Founding Fathers:

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. - Benjamin Franklin

I personally don’t have a huge problem with moderate racist jokes that help bring people together, but sometimes people just take it too far. I was on 6th Street for Halloween to check out the scene with a couple friends and took the following pictures.

There were a ton of people like this. The second picture isn’t horrible, but the first is so racist it’s unreal. I noticed that a few races get really hammered on Halloween:

• Arabs/Muslims
• Native Americans

Some argue that Halloween is equally racist against everyone, but if that were true I would see people dressing with T-Shirts saying “Nigger” and people dressing up as burnt Jews. But you probably won’t see that.

I would make this a double post and talk about how whoreish girls become on Halloween, but the picture would be too obscene even for my canvas.

I guess dressing up as cartoon characters and getting candy has gotten boring for people. Every year it seems like the girls get more prostitute-y and the guys get more racist. Instead of candy it seems like if girls have become the candy. Congrats 50 Cent. Your song “Candy Shop” has successfully turned girls into whores. And they say Islam makes the status of women low…pathetic.

It is in my opinion a holiday no Muslim should celebrate. But I won’t lie and be a hypocrite. I did dress up as and 1920’s Gangster because I was naive and didn’t know what Halloween really was. However, after I saw the truth of the holiday, I decided will never go again or do anything Halloween-y.

Halloween is Christmas for the Devil.