Gateway to Caravanserai Shutterstock

These days I am taking a group around Turkey to look at various Islamic and Christian sites.
Today we visited a medieval Carvansarai that dated from the 13^th century, called Sultanhan.

Carvaransarais were stops along a route, places where a caravan of merchants could stop for a night or two, rest, and engage in some trade.   In a world where highway travel was fraught with danger, the caravanserai offered a much needed sanctuary.The great Muslim poet Rumi took the same metaphor, and offered it to the heart.  In a brilliant poem, he encourages us to consider the heart as a carvansarai into which different guests arrive.  Now comes grief, now comes joy.  They each linger for a moment or two, a day or two, and then depart on their way.

Rumi enjoins upon the reader to serve as a gracious host to each of these guests of the heart.
Welcome grief, allow it to feel at home, and then bid it farewell.
Welcome joy, treat it as a gracious host would, and then kiss it on its way.

Sultan Han Caravanserai

This poem spoke to my heart, and those of the friends in our group.    It seems to me that we so often make one of two mistakes;  we either identify with our emotions, or we enter into an adversarial relationship with them.   We either come to see our selves as grief (or joy) itself, or we try to fight the grief, talking our selves out of it.

Mawlana Rumi’s advice is different:  we are to be gracious guests.    These emotions are not us, but they are our guests.    Welcome them, embrace them as we would an old familiar friend, let them feel at home, and when they leave, wish them well.    And then welcome the next guest.

This too shall pass…

There was an ancient Persian expression that some sages even inscribed on a seal:  In Niz Bogzarad.  “This too shall pass.”

The Turks too gave expression to it:  Bude gecer Ya-Hu.

It takes a wise person to be able to look at grief, and say to it:  “this too shall pass.”

It takes a saintly being to be able to look at joy, and say to it:  “you too shall pass.”

All shall pass, and all that remains is the presence of God, the Eternal Guest of the heart.

This too shall pass (Turkish)

Guests of the heart come,
Guests of the heart go.
The Friend of the Heart remains.

The post Caravanserai of the heart: Rumi on welcoming joy, farewell to grief appeared first on What Would Muhammad Do?.

Bob Marley Wikipedia

Today marks the anniversary of Bob Marley’s passing away.    Marley passed away on May 11^th, 1981.

There is a classic commercial for the Jamaican beer Red Stripe that ends with the memorable line:  “Red Stripe and Reggae, helping our white friends dance for 70 years.”

Walk into most college scenes, and Reggae is as much a part of the American party scene as mainstream friendly hip-hop, equally devoid of any political content .

College kids+beer+reggae=instant party.

But if our familiarity with Reggae doesn’t extend past Bob Marley’s Legend albums (admittedly, one of the coolest albums ever), and we can only sing a few lines from “Buffalo Soldier” and humming along to “Let’s get together and feel all right”, we’re missing out on a whole world of Reggae worth exploring.

One could move on Peter Tosh.   Echoing the way that many 60’s radicals, including the later Dr. King, became disenchanted with the empty rhetoric of “peace”, Tosh sings:

“Everyone is crying out for peace,
none is crying out for justice.
I don’t want no peace,
I need equal rights and justice.”

 Tosh saw this reggae message as a global struggle against colonialism and imperialism:

Everyone is fighting for equal rights and justice
Palestinians are fighting for equal rights and justice
Down in Angola, equal rights and justice
Down in Botswana, equal rights and justice
Down in Zimbabwe, equal rights and justice
Down in Rhodesia, equal rights and justice

Peter Tosh correctly recognized that his own struggles were linked to the anti-colonial struggles of Palestinians and Africans.

Emperor Selassie wikipedia

But there is no reason to move past Bob Marley himself.    Marley’s Rastafarianism was already wed to radical anti-colonial politics.    In memory of Bob Marley, the prophet of linking together music, protest, revolution, love, and redemption, here is his radically powerful song, “war.”  Marley’s song was almost a verbatim reiteration of the powerful speech given by Haile Selassie I before the League of Nations in 1963:

Bob Marley, “War”

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior
And another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned -
Everywhere is war -
Me say war.

 That until there no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the color of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the color of his eyes -
Me say war. 

That until the basic human rights
Are equally guaranteed to all,
Without regard to race -
Dis a war. 

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace,
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
But never attained -
Now everywhere is war – war.

 And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
That hold our brothers in Angola,
In Mozambique,
South Africa
Sub-human bondage
Have been toppled,
Utterly destroyed -
Well, everywhere is war -
Me say war.

War in the east,
War in the west,
War up north,
War down south -
War – war -
Rumors of war.

And until that day,
The African continent
Will not know peace,
We Africans will fight – we find it necessary -
And we know we shall win
As we are confident
In the victory
Of good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah!

If you haven’t seen Marley perform this song, here is one option and another here .

Bob Marley official site

Let’s give Marley the last word here as well:

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds….

How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?

Reggae is at its most revolutionary force when it is prophetic, emancipatory, raw, justice-oriented, anti-colonial, imbued with love and life-affirming.
And very much like Hip-Hop in this case, what a tragedy to see such powerful prophetic medium commercialized to enable awful, awful drunken dancing.

Happy Redemption, O Holy Bob.

The post More than reggae: Honoring Marley, a prophetic voice of protest appeared first on What Would Muhammad Do?.

Graduation photo courtesy Shutterstock (http://shutr.bz/12lY04A)

There is a long-standing tradition of sending off graduates with prayers, blessings, and words of wisdoms.
The truth is, friends, most of you are not going to remember much of what we tell you.
And that’s OK.

If people of my generation had had such great wisdom,
we wouldn’t be handing you a polluted world,
a humanity ravaged by war and poverty,
and an economy in shambles.

Rather than giving you words of wisdom, I want to tell you:
we are sorry.
We are sorry for the sorry lot that you have been handed.
Please help us!

And I hope you are up to the challenge.
I hope you are better than we have been so far.

I was asked to think of a gift or two to leave you with, so here are some lessons I have learned in my life.
It comes from my own Islamic tradition, but it is also a few gems from the lessons of my life, learned through my own joys and sorrows, losses and gains.

Here it goes:

Be generous
with your own selves.

Be patient
with your own selves.

A lot of people are going to ask you to figure out what you are going to “do” now that you are a grown up.
They ask you because they care, and because they are scared.
They ask because they don’t want to take care of you forever,
and because at some point they want you to take care of them.

I ask you to pay as much attention to who you are
and who you are becoming
as you do to what you are going to “do” for a living.

Remember, Jesus didn’t become Christ till he was 30.
Muhammad did not become the Prophet till he was 40.
And you all are not any cooler than them.

It took Jesus and Muhammad a while to figure out who they were,
and what they were going to “do.”
If you haven’t figured it out by the time you’re 22, it’s alright.

Be careful with love.

Be careful with people you take into your heart.

So many of you are so careful about what you put into your bodies.
Good.   That’s as it should be.   Don’t put trash into your bodies.

Graduation ceremony photo courtesy Shutterstock (http://shutr.bz/17RtZx9)

Be as careful about who you let into your hearts.
These hearts are gentle and fragile.
Chose your partners carefully.
Don’t confuse great sex with love.

If you find someone to love you back, love them kindly.

Don’t hurt the ones close to you.
The ones we love are the same ones that we hurt the most.
The ones you love are also the ones that can hurt you the most.

If you are not happy in a relationship, work on it.
If it doesn’t get better, get out.
But if you can’t make someone happy, do not increase their suffering.
Do not cheat on people you have loved once.
And don’t let someone increase your suffering.

Figure out what you are passionate about in life.
Figure out what gives you joy.

Do it.

Most of you know when your Iphones are running low, and you run to charge them.
Pay attention to your own spirit that way.
When you are running low in the spirit,
Charge your own hearts.

Figure out what charges you, and do it.
If it is prayer, pray.
If it is going for a nature walk, go for a walk.
If it is being around people you love, do it.
Don’t let your heart run on empty.

There will be a lot of temptation in your life to keep looking ahead:   Getting into this school, that school.    Getting this job, that promotion.
Finding Mr. Right, Mrs. Right.     (Mr. Right #2, Mrs. Right #3, and so on).    Buying that house, retiring.

Fine.    Through all of that, remember that this is your life.
Here and now.
The Now, the eternal now that is the very present breath you are taking.
This is the only moment you are alive in.
Live it.

Be.   Here.  Now.
The past is gone, the future is not here yet.
Don’t miss your own life.

Some of the Muslims I study say:  “have your heart be where your feet are.”
Look at where you are standing.
Look at whom you are standing with.
Be there with them.   Love them.
Be present with yourself, with those around you.

Some of you are going to get hurt in life.
Some will get shattered.
I am here to tell you that there is life after death.
I’m not talking about the Afterlife, but life on this earth after death.
There is real healing.

Hearts heal.
Wounds heal.
You will heal.

Rumi says, “the wound is where the light enters you.”
The very ways in which you get hurt might be ways in which light and grace enters your life.

You will get your heart broken, you will lose people you love, and you will survive.
Maybe even grow kinder, more compassionate, and gentler because of these losses.

I promised not to do this, this whole piling on of advice.

So I’ll stop.   I’ll simply say this:
You are special.
Each and every single one of you is special.

From where we have stood, we have seen your promise, your gift, your life, your soul, your hopes, your dreams.
And you have not stood here alone.
Each of you has stood here because someone, somewhere has sacrificed for you.
Someone, somewhere paid your price.
Someone, somewhere, loved you.

You are not alone.
You are loved.
You stand on someone’s shoulder.
You are paid for.

Be not alone.
Reach out to one another, to those who have sacrificed for you, and to those for whom you will sacrifice.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying the most important thing of all:
We love you.

The post with love, to graduates appeared first on What Would Muhammad Do?.

Lightning from Shutterstock

We’re having one of those amazing thunder & lightning storms tonight.

The dark sky is all lit up with bolts of lightning that come down from the heavens.   For a second or two, all is illuminated with a terrifying beautiful light.

Rock and tree, grass and sky all share for a fleeting moment in a brilliant all-encompassing luminosity that bonds us all together, before leaving us back in awe.

And then comes the merciful rain.

As I look back on my own life, I see a few periods of dark storms, even thunder and lightning.     There were periods where the storms of life came, events that shattered me, or at least shattered my sense of who I was.

At the time they seemed to last forever,
and it was hard to tell the difference between myself and the suffering.
Then they were gone.

And then came down the mercy.

Alhamdulilah, those pains were  always followed by merciful rain.

Here is one of the promises that we are given in Scripture.

Indeed with difficulty, there is ease.  

The Scripture does not say that “after” difficulty there is ease.
It states, and emphatically, that the ease is there already, inside the difficulty.

Muslim mystics like Ibn ‘Arabi say that the heart of the faithful is held between the “two fingers” of the All-Merciful.
It has helped me to see that even as love and gentleness of rain are aspects of God, so is the awesome and majestic thunder.

It has changed how I listen to the thunder, and how I see through lightning.
I’m still in awe, but I know that it’s linked to the rain.

Our God is a God of the dark nights, and the bright flashes.
A God of the lofty peaks, and the low valleys.

A God of the pain, and the ease.
A God of life, and of death.

Life-giving rain (Shutterstock)

A thousand deaths have I died in this life

Why should I fear any death again
When I’ve always been resurrected higher

Why should I fear any lightning and thunder
When I know they also contain life-giving rain

Praise be God, the Lord of all the worlds,
no matter which world we happen to be living through at the moment.

Praise be God,
God of the lightning,
God of the thunder,
God of the merciful rain.

The post God of Thunder, God of Rain appeared first on What Would Muhammad Do?.

Justin Bieber (from Shutterstock)

In a recent concert in Istanbul, Justin Bieber stopped his concert twice for the Islamic call to prayer (adhan/azan).    The crowd was at first puzzled, and then delighted at the Biebster’s display of religious sensitivity.

Here is a good recording of the call to prayer.   and an English translation here.

Why would The Biebster do that?   Out of respect.

Many Muslims, even the ones who may not rush to prayer, still turn the music down or even pause from activity to acknowledge the call of the Divine.
It is a reminder that for most of us, we live our daily lives in ignorance of God.

When we forget about God, we forget about our own selves.
So pausing to stop and reflect at the moment of the call to prayer is a reminder of the need to live a fully human life, as God intended for us to live: to see all of us as creatures created by God, intended to know and love God.

Of course there are those who see any sort of “cultural/religious” sensitivity towards Islam as a sign of “Shari’a creep”, the delusional plot that Islam is somehow taking….over…the world.

The Pinky and The Brain

You know, kind of like the Pinky and the Brain cartoon from my childhood, but browner, and more eeeevil.
One of these folks who suffers from delusions of “Shari’a creep” is Newt Gingrich, who believes that Islamic law is “totally abhorrent to the Western world.”

And this guy was almost the Republican nominee for president.

We have seen previously how Muslims with a good sense of humor turned the paranoia of Shari’a on its head.

But humor didn’t help us take…over…the world.
So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the latest weapon for the Muslim take over…of…the world:   Justin Bieber.

Yes, first we’ll have teenager girls swooning after him.
Soon, we’ll take over the world.

Excellent, excellent, the plan is working.

Insha’allah.   (as long as that doesn’t mark us as a radical)

Way to go, Justin.

Either that, or maybe the Biebster is just reminding us that pacé the delusional paranoia of Islamophobes, sometimes it’s just ok to be culturally respectful of other people’s traditions.*

It’s ok people, we can all live together on this very small planet.
Now, here is a way to see Fox News brought down to its knees.
Fox, please go after Justin Bieber as a closet Islamist .
Do it, for the love of God.

Justin Bieber concert in Istanbul

Then be prepared to feel the rash of the Belieber Army…of Jihadist?     And this is a global army of Beliebers.  Justin Bieber fan sites all over the world had images of the concert.

Excellent….It’s working.

Even if we can’t establish an Islamic state all over the world, at least we can bring down Fox News.
That’s almost as good.

First Bieber image is from Shutterstock.  Second image is from global Bieber fan sites.     Pinky and the Brain is from Wikipedia.
*URL link to Center for American Progress’ Fear, Inc. added.

The post Justin Bieber … The Islamist appeared first on What Would Muhammad Do?.

Being in academia, I hear a lot about “critique” and being “critical.”    My own understanding of “critique” is largely inspired by the writings of the late and great Edward Said.  For Said, Criticism had to be “life-enhancing”, liberatory, and opposed to tyranny:

Criticism must think of itself as life-enhancing and constitutively opposed to every form of tyranny, domination, and abuse;
Its social goals are noncoercive knowledge prodcued in the interests of human freedom.

Edward Said

Said rightly pointed out that those who engage in social criticism have an obligation to do so not with a view towards status quo, or to support the privileged, but to stand by, with, and for those who are marginalized:

“The intellectuals representations–what he or she represents and how those ideas are represented to an audience–are always tied to and ought to remain an organic part of an ongoing experience in society: of the poor, the disadvantaged, the voiceless, the unrepresented, the powerless.”

And there is a lot of good insight there.   And much that I have tried to learn from.
But what I don’t hear enough about is love.
I don’t hear enough about community.

For that, I have had to turn to the teachings of Dr. King, who in his letter from Birmingham Jail addressed the White Church, and stated that he was writing out of a deep disappointment as a man of the cloth, and that his disappointment was rooted not in anger, but in a love:

for there can be no great disappointment where there is also not great love.

And I think all three are vital: yes we need to be critical.
And that critique has to be rooted in a deep and abiding love, even when the critique is rooted in a disappointment with how things are now (compared to how they should be).

And community. There is a tremendous different between positioning oneself in the very midst of a community and trying to uplift all of us, and standing on some mythical cloud and pointing an accusatory finger AT the community.

In my experience, people can and do tell the difference, and they respond very different.

Lastly, it is not enough to critique.

One must be able, willing, and committed to offering a more generous, a more beautiful alternative, and work diligently and patiently to make it a reality.
May it be that all who seek to engage in social criticism and “reforming” a community do not stop at critique, but also ground themselves in love and community.

The post Critique, Love, and Community appeared first on What Would Muhammad Do?.

Tragedies and triumphs stir our souls.  Whatever is buried deep below bubbles to the surface, and reveals itself.

For some, it is a heroic self-sacrifice that they may hitherto not known they were capable of till that very moment.   For others, it is not so deeply buried prejudice and hatred.

We have focused a great deal—and rightly so—on the heroic actions of the First Responders, the ordinary people, and the Boston police department.

But let us also take a moment to think about some of the naive and misguided ignorance** that is now also apparent and public.  The purpose is not (merely) to expose, but rather to shine the light on areas of shortcoming that we, all of us, will have to deal with if we are to get to a more beautiful place than we are right now.***

Yes, we could make up this entire list from Fox News.   But in the interest of being “fair and balanced”, I tried to spread the love around.
So here we go:  Five dumbest things (so far) said about the Boston Marathon explosions.

1) Ann Coulter, Fox News Ideologue, on how Muslim women “ought To Be In Prison For Wearing A Hijab…”

Coulter is of course known for a whole set of famous comments, stating that when it comes to Muslims, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” 

Ann Coulter: Invade Muslim Countries and Convert them to Christianity

Well, Ms. Coulter is at it again.   This time her comments about comments about Katherine Russell, the wife of the dead Boston marathon suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  Ms. Russell is not in any way suspected of being associated with any criminal activity, and her family has already released a statement stating that they, like everyone else, were in the dark about the crimes Tamerlane is accused of doing.

Ann Coulter: Fox News pundit

So how is Ms. Russell offending Coulter?   It is that Ms. Russell converted to Islam a few years ago, and has chosen to wear a head-covering when she is in public.   Ms. Russell wears a form of head-covering (hijab) in public, as many Muslim women do, as many Orthodox Jewish women do, and as many Christian women used to do until not too long ago (and nuns still do).

This, choosing how to dress, is the crime for which Ms. Coulter thinks Ms. Russell (and presumably other Muslim women) should go to prison.

No, Ms. Coulter.

The whole point of a free society is that people should be free to make their own decisions about their body and their clothing.
If women want to cover their hair, more power to them.
If they want to wear shorts and a T-shirt, more power to them.
If they want to dress modestly, more power to them.
If women want to wear bikinis, more power to them.

If living in a free society means that you are free to dress as you like and get on Fox and voice your admittedly ignorant comments, those same freedoms mean that Ms. Russell, like other citizens, are free to dress as they like and believe what they want.     You can no more negate their rights without stripping yourself of yours.

Not being content to stop her rant with hijab, Coulter proceeded to ask of Ms. Russell “Did she get a clitorectomy too?”

Fortunately, there was a wonderfully gracious response from many Muslim women.
2)    Geographically challenged Americans

Apparently many Americans cannot tell the difference between Chechnya (a land-locked republic of former Soviet Union, currently a Russian federal subject) and the Czech Republic (an East European country).

Someone has had even had the good sense to compile a list of tweets revealing this sad if humorous confusion:

Geographically Challenged Tweets about Chechnya/Czech Republic

Yes.  “Public Shaming” indeed.    The lack of knowledge of many Americans about the broader world is somewhat legendary.

Now combine that lack of awareness about the world with anger, and desire to want to inflict damage on people (as in “nuking” people, even if it happens to be, well, the wrong people), and the combination is shall we say not revealing the best face of America.

By the way, a few geographically challenged Americans were calling for nuking a country, Czechoslovakia, which has not existed since 1993.

3)    Fox News Identifies Root Causes of Terrorism:  American Boobs, skyscrapers, and Pools.   (Really).

The next “award” goes to Bill O’Reilly and Adam Carolla.   Opining on Bill O’Reilly’s show, Adam Carolla vents [If you can't stomach idiocy, fast-forward to 1:55].

Bill O’Reilly: Fox News

“They hate our culture, they hate our way of life. They hate that our women’s boobies get bigger, our swimming pools get deeper, and we’re building skyscrapers and bridges. Allah is supposed to take care of all this decadence, but Allah never does, so they take it upon themselves.”

I wonder who the “they” are:  The Tsarnaev brothers?  1.5 billion Muslims around the world?  Chechens?  Terrorists?   All the above?  Or perhaps it doesn’t matter in Carolla’s provincial worldview, as long as they are some “imagined” other.

And for the “our” in Carolla’s statement (“they hate our culture”), I wonder about the reference there as well.     Who is the “we” here?  Fox news?  America? Maybe, just maybe, not all Americans have inflated boobies, ever-deeper pools, and skyscrapers.

For that matter, I wonder if Carolla has googled the tallest buildings in the world.   (just wonderin’).  Hint:  It may not be where he thinks.

I also wonder about Carolla, an avowed atheist, singling out “Allah.”   Could it be that he is hesitant to reveal to Fox’s conservative base that he disavows “their” Christian God as well?   Fox News loves to accuse Muslims of “Taqiyya” (hiding their true religious intentions).  I wonder if one could speak of “atheist taqiyya”?

Never mind.
Some comments are so idiotic that that are perhaps not worth the breath needed to dissect, analyze, and refute them.    Let’s just say that these comments reveal more about Carolla’s shallow misogynist materialism than they tell us anything about any one else on the planet.  And shame on Bill O’Reilly for allowing them to go on unchallenged.

[And seriously, how is this on TV?  ]

Next item.

4) Asra Nomani, Muslim journalist, writing in The Washington Post: Use of phrases like “God-willing” is a sign of radicalization.

In breathless “analysis,” Nomani opined that the she had the courage to talk about what other Muslims know about but are too “politically correct” to admit: that the “increasing use” of phrases like insha’allah (“God-willing”) by Muslims is a “code inside the community for someone who is becoming hardcore.

“It doesn’t mean that they’re becoming violent or criminal,” she said, “but it’s a red flag.” * [SEE EDITOR'S NOTE BELOW]

Asra Nomani, writer-activist

No, Ms. Nomani.

One wonders how often Ms. Nomani has actually been around real practicing Muslims, whose daily language is imbued with reminders of the Divine:

If you ask most Muslims “How are you?”
You might hear:  “Praise be to God (Alhamdulilah), I am doing well.”

If you ask most Muslims “Will I see you tomorrow?”
You might hear:   “If God wills it (insha’Allah), I will be there.”

To point out a beautiful child, a Muslim might state “Look at what God has willed (masha’allah), what a beautiful child!”

The use, and increased usage, of phrases like Godwilling (insha’allah) is not a sign of radicalization, but merely one of piety.   In the Qur’an, God enjoins upon Muslims:  “never say I will do such-and-such tomorrow without adding If-God-wills-it-so…’”  [Qur’an 18:23-24]

If such phraseology sounds “stuffy” to some ears, it is (or was) a part of the Christian tradition as well.  The Epistle of James (4:15) includes the following injunction:

For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

If the Lord will…
God-willing.
Insha’allah.

Uttering these phrases makes one neither a Christian radical nor a Muslim radical, but simply a person who recognizes that we, by our own selves, can do nothing.   We acknowledge that our life, breath, soul, and will, are all dependent on God.

Then again, I am not sure how much to expect from someone like Asra Nomani who uses her position of access in media to argue that Muslims should be racially profiled.

5) Many, many Republican officials across the country

Oh sweet Jesus, get in line here, for it’s a looooong queue.  Where to start?
Do we go with Republican New York sen. Greg Ball who argued for the use of torture?

R-NY Congressman Greg Ball calls for torture.

“And it comes down to this,” Ball said. “When you talk about terrorism, information matters. And if getting that information, including torture, would save one innocent life – including, that we’ve seen, children – would you use torture? I can tell you I would be first in line.”

That, in spite of the fact that the government’s own bi-partisan report issued recently states that torture has “no justification”, and that this practice of torture “damaged the standing of our nation, reduced our capacity to convey moral censure when necessary and potentially increased the danger to U.S. military personnel taken captive.”    Furthermore, our own government has concluded that torture does not actually produce accurate results, and there is no evidence that information obtained by torture could not have been obtained by legal means.

Do we go with the North Carolina’s own Michele Presnell who equated Islamic prayer with “Condoning terrorism”?

Michele Presnel (R-NC)

Do we go with the California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher who stated that Islam as a whole represents a threat to the United States:
Here is the Congressman in his own words:

Dana Rohrabacher

“I hope we all work together against a religion that will motivate people to murder children and other threats to us as a civilization.”

Or should we go to other zealots who have talked about isolating mosques and putting them all under surveillance, when we know that the few Muslims who commit acts of terror come not from mosques.  Instead, they tend to be isolated and alienated individuals who get their propaganda from online lectures from radical overseas clerics?    In other words, we would want American Muslims to go to mosques, to have healthy and functioning mosque communities, to get their information from trained religious authorities, and to be part of a vibrant and paranoia-free community.

To put it more eloquently, listen to the words of Imam Suhaib Webb of the large Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center:

“Radicalization does not happen to young people with a strong grounding in the American Muslim mainstream; increasingly, it happens online, and sometimes abroad, among the isolated and disaffected.”

It would be helpful if the FBI did not spend millions of dollars planting 15,000 spies in mosques to do surveillance on all Muslims, and in many cases seek to brainwash susceptible young people before sweeping in to arrest those some people.   I think there is a name for that:  entrapment.

The New York Times has a name for this type of a legal justice system as well:  a separate justice system for Muslims.
“Separate but equal” is a path that we as Americans have tried before, and we don’t want to go down that rabitt hole again.

Let us hope that shining the light on these provides us with an opportunity to heal, to remove shortcomings, and ameliorate our own ignorance.   May it be that these may be a step towards moving woundedness to healing. 

Images are from Wikipedia.

* [EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS SECTION WAS REVISED TO MORE ACCURATELY QUOTE FROM ASRA NOMANI'S ORIGINAL PIECE]
**The phrase “idiotic ignorance” was revised to:   “politically naive and factually misguided ignorance.”
***The phrase “The purpose is not (merely) to expose and ridicule—ok, maybe there is a touch of that—” was revised to “The purpose is not merely to expose.”

The post 5 dumbest things said about the Boston Marathon Explosions: Fox News, (some) Republicans appeared first on What Would Muhammad Do?.

dzhokhar tsarnaev

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the second suspect in the horrific Boston Marathon explosions has been apprehended.    Presumably, we can take a break from round-the-clock coverage of the chase that has consumed the nation.    Less than 24 hours ago, no one had heard of the Tsarnaev brothers.    That’s almost literally true:  even their uncle had not heard from them in years.    Now they are macabre celebrities whose every online trace is being analyzed for any clue as to what might have led them to commit such atrocities.    The breathless analysis of the 24-hour news media continues to offer theories and half-baked motivations even when the basic facts have not been yet gathered.

Here are ten basic points that we would all do well to keep in mind as we try to make sense of a world that seems to be in need of sanity and compassion.

1)    Those who know the suspects best say that this had nothing to do with being Chechen, or with Islam.

Ruslan Tsarni, the suspects’ uncles, went to meet the national media, and gave a powerful, honest, and passionate presentation.   He encouraged his nephew, Dzhokhar, to turn himself in.  He also called his own nephews “losers,” and stated that this atrocity had nothing to do with being Chechen or Islam.  Tsarni spoke powerfully about his love for America, and how silly it is to associate this crime with an ethnicity or religion.   Tsarni also encouraged Dzhokhar to beg his victims for forgiveness.

2)    The experts you see on TV opining on Chechnya and the Chechen people do not know anything about Chechnya.  

Chechnya is a fairly remote region.   There are few people on TV with actual expertise about Chechnya.   Most of these “instant experts” go to Wikipedia to get their information.  Because of the 24-hour news media, we now have created a cult of instant experts who need to be able to fill the airways now about Iraq, now about Afghanistan, now about Chechnya, without necessarily having set foot on these places, knowing their languages, their history, or spoken with their peoples.    Complex geo-political realities are collapsed into cliché tropes of “jihad” and “terrorism.”   The late Edward Said made this same point 30 years ago for the first time.  It is even more true today with social media and the fake experts paraded on Fox and elsewhere.

Here is one simple revelation: Read the Wikipedia page on Chechnya, and then see how many of its phrases show up in the sound bites of these instant experts.

So where can one turn?   It’s not perfect, but as a starting place for Chechnya start here and here.    If you can handle satire on such heavy occasions, The Onion pretty much nails it.

3)    The power and danger of social media

We do live in amazing days, when people are putting on Twitter the content from police scanner before the TV news sources have reported it.    Yes, the information from social media called into the FBI doubtlessly helped identify the suspects.     Amazing power there.

And yet this powerful tool also goes wrong, horribly wrong.   This tool produces victims and violence of its own.

In the early morning hours of Friday, the suspicion focused on Sunil Tripathi, an Ivy-league graduate philosophy student of Indian background who has been missing for weeks.    Imagine the horror of his family, who has not heard from their loved ones for weeks, only to see his name and image all over national TV.    It turns out it was all a false alarm, on to the next suspect.    Never mind.  No hard feelings.

4)    The two brothers do not exactly fit the model of pious Muslims.

We don’t know much about the two brothers, and all of us—myself included—are trying to piece together a narrative from the few pieces that we have available.    The few pieces we have do not exactly add up to a life of pious observance of Islam.    Their high school friends talk about the two brothers getting together, drinking, and smoking pot.    

We are very much in the early stage of piecing evidence together: the few isolated quotes we have from the two brothers so far suggests that they were not particularly practicing, before having a “conversion” experience connected to jihadist rhetoric associated with Australian extremist Sheikh Feiz, etc.

We have seen this before, in the case of the 9/11 hijackers who visited strip clubs and got loaded up on alcohol and porn before committing their atrocities—again, not the actions of Muslim role models.   At this point the path of wisdom is to wait for the legal process to uncover more actual facts about the lives of the two suspects.

5)    Alienation

While many of the sites are busy trying to connect the despicable actions of the bombers to Islam or Chechen ethnicity, at least one important clue seems to be in the same alienation that characterized many mass murderers such as Adam Lanza and the Columbine shooters.

The elder brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, said:

“I don’t have a single American friend, I don’t understand them.”

We have a lot of questions to ask, and seek for answers, trying to sort out how it is possible to live in a society where people can be so disconnected and cut off from the human beings next to them.    Obviously very few Americans go around blowing people up.  But that alienation, combined occasionally with mental illness, is a bigger problem than we are willing to confront at this moment.

Another scholar, Juan Cole, offers an intriguing theory of a broken family dynamic, focused around tensions between the two sons and their father.

6)    Islam forbids terrorism.

No matter what the experts on TV say, and for that matter what the two brothers might have said, here is one simple fact.   Islamic law does not permit the random, indiscriminate killing of civilians.     It is categorically forbidden.     The Prophet Muhammad himself forbade the killing of women, elderly, civilians, and religious leaders.

Over the next few weeks we will undoubtedly learn much more about the two brothers, but we should not conflate their deranged motivations and the teachings of the Islamic tradition.    Period.

Muslim organizations immediately condemned Monday’s atrocities, and have set up a fund for the victims.

As everyone is of course fully aware, there are some Muslims who engage in terrorist activities.   There are also some Jews, some Christians, some atheists, some Hindus, etc.   No religion has a monopoly on hatred and idiocy, and no religion has a monopoly on love, compassion, and beauty.    Rather, my point is quite simply this: Even in those cases (including this one, if the judicial process proves it to have been one) that some Muslims engage in terrorist activities, they do so over and against Islamic teachings about the sanctity of human lives that prohibit the violation of shedding civilian blood.    These prohibitions go back to the very example of the Prophet.

Muslim terrorists (and all perpetuators of violence and oppression) deserve to be studied carefully.   However, to depict them as embodying the essence of Islam (as Islamophobic forces routinely do) is precisely to grant them the very legitimacy that they crave.   They neither possess nor deserve this legitimacy.

7)    Political opportunism

We are already seeing the calls by right-wing fanatics seeking to use this tragedy to advance their own political causes.    The same congressman (R-NY) Peter King who had lead embarrassing and inaccurate Muslim witch-hunts on the House is now calling for increased profiling of Muslims.

Lindsay Graham Twitter

We have also seen our elected officials such as Lindsay Graham (R-SC) opining that the suspect should not be afforded his full constitutional rights.   In fact, Dzhokhar did not get to hear his Miranda rights.   Yes, we are all delighted that he was captured, but the skipping of legal rights hurts all of us.

After Dzhokhar was captured, the Boston Police department sent out a Tweet:
““The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.”

As usual, Glenn Greenwald puts it as clearly and powerfully as possible here.

Yes, thank God the hunt is over, and the suspect is in custody.   Now we have to make sure that justice does indeed win.
We have to make sure that we honor our legal process.

8)    Hate crimes against Muslim Americans

It has already begun.  We have already seen a number of attacks on Muslims in America who had absolutely nothing to do with Monday’s atrocities—that is to say, every person in America not named Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

A Bangladeshi man was attacked in Bronx as he stepped outside of an Applebee’s.     The attackers shouted ““f–king Arab” as they savagely beat him.   [Bangladeshis are not Arab, and for that matter neither are the Chechens.]

A Syrian woman was confronted as she was going for a walk in Malden, Massachussetts.   Heba Abolaban, who is a physician, was heading with her daughter in a stroller to a play date.   A man walked up to her, punched her in the shoulder, and shouted at her:  “Fuck you. Fuck you Muslims, You are terrorists, you are the ones who made the Boston explosion.”

The tendency to associate crimes committed by one person with an entire community (ethnic or religious) is particularly harmful for people of color, and directly related to our next item:  white privilege.

9)    White privilege:

There had been so much speculation before the suspects were apprehended about their background and motivation.   The best of these reflections was:  “Please don’t let it be a Muslim.” 

White privilege

Embedded in that discussion of course was a hierarchy of power, racism, and assumption of collective guilt.    To put it as bluntly as possible, when deranged killers are white (as Timothy McVeigh, as James Holmes the Colorado movie theater shooter  was, in fact as 44 out of the 62 mass murderers in America over the last few years have been white), white people do not have to issue collective statements that they are decent human beings. White people do not have to prove that they are Americans, and white people do not have to demonstrate that they are not inherently evil.   Why expect other people, in this case Muslims, to behave any different?

10) It’s not about Islam, or Chechnya.  It’s about America.

What happens now matters.  How we as a nation move forward is critical.    Do we turn our attention where it belongs, on comforting and healing the victims of Monday’s attacks, and do we allow a fair and legal process to bring charges against the captured suspect?

Do we turn into an angry mob accusing all Muslims of a crime that two men committed?
Do we turn this into an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant hysteria?

Or, do we insist that we as a people are better than what we have been through?
Do we want to be heroes, like the ones that put their own lives on the line on Monday, and again in apprehending the suspects?
Or do we give in to unjustified bloodlust?

The basis of the American criminal system is that we evaluate people for what they do, not for who they are.    As one source put it, it’s about verbs, not adjectives.     Let’s keep it that way.      It’s about criminal actions, not their ethnicity or religion.

We have seen plenty of heroism these last few days, from the Boston police force and First Responders on Monday, to Uncle Ruslan’s humane and passionate response in seeing his own family members implicated in horrific crimes, to the work of the FBI in tracking down Dzhokhar without creating new victims.

Monday’s chapter was written.
Our response is yet to be written, and we are its authors.
Let us hope and pray that we are up to responding in a way that offers a beautiful reflection of our character.

I hope we remember the beautiful viral response from Patton Oswalt after Monday’s bombings.

“So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, “The good outnumber you, and we always will.”

I hope we remember the powerful singing of the national anthem after the Boston Bruins game.

I hope we remember Uncle Ruslan:

Uncle Ruslan Tsarni

“I teach my children.
This is the ideal micro-world in the entire world.
I respect this country.
I love this country.
This country which gives chance to everybody else to be treated as a human being and to just to be human being.
To feel yourself human being.”

Richard Martin, 8-year old victim of Monday’s explosions

And I hope we remember Martin Richard, the beautiful 8-year old victim of Monday’s bombing:

No More Hurting People.  Peace.  

The post 10 Essential points about the Boston Marathon bombers, Islam, and America appeared first on What Would Muhammad Do?.

President Obama addressing about Boston Marathon

In his first comments about the horrific bombing in Boston, President Obama stated that it was a “heinous and cowardly act”, and offered prayers and condolences from himself and Michelle to people of Boston.

Speaking in his familiar function as the nations’s Pastor-in-Chief, the President beautifully articulated how this nation’s hearts turn toward Boston, and we all share our prayers and condolences with the victims, their families, friends and loved ones.

Obama then went on to say something so powerful and poignant, that I wonder how it has escaped political and religious analysis so far.  The President added:

Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.

Mr. President, I wonder if you realize how right you are.

Boston Marathon cop hero: http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/blogs/the-upbeat/bostoncops.jpg

Like all other Americans, we have been grieving the human suffering in Boston.    Like all other Americans, we too have been sending our prayers and condolences.   We too have been remembering Martin Richard, and Krystle Campbell and Lu Lingzi and marveling at the tales of heroism that have emerged from Boston.

And yet unlike all Americans, we as Muslims have the sad déjà vu experience of having seen this horrific story before.    Those of us who keep one eye in our home here in America and one eye on the rest of the planet know that these explosions—and worse—happen far too frequently in Syria, Pakistan, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.

Here is the hard part: how do we urge our fellow Americans to expand the circle of their concern, and see our suffering HERE as being connected to the suffering THERE without trivializing the suffering of our Boston community?

How do we make a point about our shared humanity without belittling the humanity of our neighbors here?

My hope and prayer is that the cry of my own heart is not read as an attempt to engage in a calculus of suffering (“my people have suffered more than your people”, etc.)  but rather a passionate plea to realize that we are all children of the same God, that each of our lives all over this small planet is sacred and sacrosanct.

How do we make the point that the lives here are sacred, dear and precious, and so are the lives over there?

And Mr. President, how do we tell you as clearly and passionately that you are right, but you do not realize how right you are?

Mr. President, it was our own American government that in 2002 dropped bombs on a wedding party in Uruzgan (Afghanistan), and killed thirty people and wounded ninety more.     The residents in that city in Afghanistan said:  “”There are no Taliban or al Qaeda or Arabs here. These people were all civilians, women and children.”

Mr. President, you said “Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.”  Any time, you said, Mr. President.
So were we involved in an act of terror then, Mr. President?

No need to go back to 2002.    Let’s take this past weekend, the one whose conclusion saw the horrific explosions in Boston, with 3 dead and 176 wounded.   Mr. President, our own government led an air-strike on a home in Afghanistan that was caught up in a battle between the Taliban and the U.S.-supported Afghan government.   President Obama, we dropped a bomb on this house, and we killed children.     Mr. President, you speak so eloquently and passionately when it is our children in Chicago, Newtown and now Boston.    President Obama, do you have any words of condolence to offer these Afghan families whose children died because we dropped bombs on them?

AP Photo/Naimatullah Karyab: Afghan children killed in US bombing

“The lifeless bodies of Afghan children lay on the ground before their funeral ceremony, after a NATO airstrike killed several Afghan civilians, including ten children during a fierce gun battle with Taliban militants in Shultan, Shigal district, Kunar, eastern Afghanistan, Sunday, April 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Naimatullah Karyab)”

Mr. President, you said: “Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.”
We dropped these bombs on innocent children.
Is this an act of terror, Mr. President?

Or is it an act of terror only when it’s done to us and our allies?

President Obama, I know you to be a committed Christian, and I can imagine that some will respond to the above by callously stating that such things happen in war.     Remind them, Mr. President, of Dr. King’s bold words about why he, as a Christian, had to be just as concerned about American lives as he was about Vietnamese lives:

Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men — for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them?

Are you, and we, willing to follow the footsteps of Dr. King, and see this message of good will, love, and concern as one that goes beyond our nation’s borders and interests and encompassing the whole of humanity?

Mr. President, I write not as one of your haters, but as a patriotic American who loves this country but does not love what we have become, loves our ideals as a Republic but does not love the empire that we have turned into.  I write as a human being, an American, a father, a son, a teacher, a Muslim, a friend, a citizen, as one who wept for Newtown and weeps again for Boston—and weeps for Syria, for Iraq, for Palestine, for Afghanistan, for Israel, for Iran, and for Yemen.

I write to remind you that actions are to be judged on their own merits, and not based on wealth, race, or nationality of the actions’ perpetrators or victims.

Afghan families gathered around bodies of children killed in US bombing

You were actually right, Mr. President: “Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.”
I wonder how right you are, and whether you realize what that says about our own country when we are the ones dropping bombs or using drones.

Mr. President, you know that in our faith traditions there is a rich legacy of reading out the names of victims and the deceased, and pausing to pray for them.    Out of respect for that tradition, here is a brief list, Mr. President.

The first three are our names, names of people who died in the horrific actions in Boston.
The rest of the names are our names too, the names of people in Afghanistan and Pakistan who have died in our drone attacks.

May we grow to the point of extending the same love, care and grief that we show towards our victims — to all God’s children.

USA
Name | Age | Gender

Martin Richard | 8 | male

Krystle Campbell | 29 | female

Lu Lingzi | 23 | female

PAKISTAN

Name | Age | Gender

Noor Aziz | 8 | male

Abdul Wasit | 17 | male

Noor Syed | 8 | male

Wajid Noor | 9 | male

Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male

Ayeesha | 3 | female

Qari Alamzeb | 14| male

Shoaib | 8 | male

Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male

Tariq Aziz | 16 | male

Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male

Maezol Khan | 8 | female

Nasir Khan | male

Naeem Khan | male

Naeemullah | male

Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male

Azizul Wahab | 15 | male

Fazal Wahab | 16 | male

Ziauddin | 16 | male

Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male

Fazal Hakim | 19 | male

Ilyas | 13 | male

Sohail | 7 | male

Asadullah | 9 | male

khalilullah | 9 | male

Noor Mohammad | 8 | male

Khalid | 12 | male

Saifullah | 9 | male

Mashooq Jan | 15 | male

Nawab | 17 | male

Sultanat Khan | 16 | male

Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male

Noor Mohammad | 15 | male

Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male

Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male

Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male

Abdullah | 18 | male

Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male

Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male

Shahbuddin | 15 | male

Yahya Khan | 16 |male

Rahatullah |17 | male

Mohammad Salim | 11 | male

Shahjehan | 15 | male

Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male

Bakht Muneer | 14 | male

Numair | 14 | male

Mashooq Khan | 16 | male

Ihsanullah | 16 | male

Luqman | 12 | male

Jannatullah | 13 | male

Ismail | 12 | male

Taseel Khan | 18 | male

Zaheeruddin | 16 | male

Qari Ishaq | 19 | male

Jamshed Khan | 14 | male

Alam Nabi | 11 | male

Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male

Rahmatullah | 14 | male

Abdus Samad | 17 | male

Siraj | 16 | male

Saeedullah | 17 | male

Abdul Waris | 16 | male

Darvesh | 13 | male

Ameer Said | 15 | male

Shaukat | 14 | male

Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male

Salman | 12 | male

Fazal Wahab | 18 | male

Baacha Rahman | 13 | male

Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male

Iftikhar | 17 | male

Inayatullah | 15 | male

Mashooq Khan | 16 | male

Ihsanullah | 16 | male

Luqman | 12 | male

Jannatullah | 13 | male

Ismail | 12 | male

Abdul Waris | 16 | male

Darvesh | 13 | male

Ameer Said | 15 | male

Shaukat | 14 | male

Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male

Adnan | 16 | male

Najibullah | 13 | male

Naeemullah | 17 | male

Hizbullah | 10 | male

Kitab Gul | 12 | male

Wilayat Khan | 11 | male

Zabihullah | 16 | male

Shehzad Gul | 11 | male

Shabir | 15 | male

Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male

Shafiullah | 16 | male

Nimatullah | 14 | male

Shakirullah | 16 | male

Talha | 8 | male

YEMEN

Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female

Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female

Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female

Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female

Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male

Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male

Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female

Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female

Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female

Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female

Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male

Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female

Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female

Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female

Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female

Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male

Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female

Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female

Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male

Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male

Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female

AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male

Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male

Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male

Nasser Salim | 19

Compiled from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports
 [The Bureau has received the Amnesty International Digital Awards the last two years running.  List is generated by Jungwon Kim.]

May all of these souls be blessed, may they be received into God’s mercy, and may honor of their lives by repenting from the violence that led to their death.

Afghanistan casualty image is from here.

Boston Cop hero image is from here.

The post Boston Marathon, Terrorism, and President Obama appeared first on What Would Muhammad Do?.

Richard Family, from Telegraph.

My thoughts and prayers go out to this family, the Richard family.
They have lost their beautiful son, Martin, in the Boston explosion yesterday.
The mom and their daughter are also injured.

Here was the father’s response:

“My dear son Martin has died from injuries sustained in the attack on Boston.
My wife and daughter are both recovering from serious injuries.
We thank our family and friends, those we know and those we have never met, for their thoughts and prayers.
I ask that you continue to pray for my family as we remember Martin.
We also ask for your patience and for privacy as we work to simultaneously grieve and recover.”

May no parent ever have to write these words. Anywhere.

I keep looking at the words of the son, Martin, which he inscribed on the board he was holding:”

No more hurting people. Peace.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9999346/Boston-Marathon-bombing-Martin-Richards-family-ripped-apart-by-terror-attack.html

Is that not the very essence of all religious traditions?
Are we not here to alleviate suffering?

The Prophet Muhammad taught us:  ”The believers, in their love, mutual kindness, and close ties, are like one body; when any part complains, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever.”

This is our response, as one human community:    the suffering of others is our own suffering.
Our suffering is connected because our humanity is shared.
We are caught up in this woven pattern of humanity together.

If you can, bring joy and love to humanity.
If you cannot—and you can—at least cause no harm.

Many religious traditions teach us about the urgency of love and compassion.
We also would seem to do well by starting with suffering:     alleviate the suffering of all.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/martin-richard-8-loved-playing-with-sister-friends/2013/04/16/1e5c123c-a698-11e2-b029-8fb7e977ef71_story.html

That lesson is one that the beautiful 8-year- old boy, Richard Martin, had already learned.
What better way to honor him than by learning the lesson he had to teach.

One very moving tribute to Richard came from the parents of Trayvon Martin, the Florida young man killed last year.  Trayvon’s parents reached out to the Richard family in compassion and grief:

Our hearts are broken over the tragedy in Boston yesterday. Our family sends our sincerest condolences to all of those who have been affected by this terrible situation.  We especially would like to send a message to the family of eight-year-old, Martin Richard.  We have come to understand that the peace sign that Martin is holding in a photo being circulated throughout the media, was created in response to a lesson by his teacher about the death of our son and the issue of violence. From our family to yours’, we are praying for you, thinking about you and will remember your son for the rest of our lives.

~Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin

Trayvon,    Richard,   these are all our children, who shine the light on the path we have to walk down.
Either we will learn to follow their wisdom together, or we will perish like fools together.

Christ taught us:   a little child shall lead them.
No more hurting people.
Peace.

Peace to you, Martin.
Peace to you, as you go back to God.
Peace to your wounded family, and prayers for healing.
Peace to humanity.

Inna lilah wa inna ilayhi raji’un.
We all come from God,
and we are in every breath returning to God.

Image of the family is from the Telegraph.

The post “No more hurting people. Peace.” appeared first on What Would Muhammad Do?.