Confident Muslim
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. And I'm going to talk about the topic of today. It's truly not just a confident Muslim, but she kind of intimidates me. She's intimidating to a lot of people. Because, mashallah, she's so well accomplished. She's 19 years old. Her name is Hira Hashmi. She's from Denver, Colorado. She already has a bachelor's in molecular biology from the University of Colorado. And while other teenagers were struggling through their teens, Hira showed her maturity by penning two novels at the age of 13 and 15. She's an avid artist. She enjoys procuring Arabic calligraphy, specifically verses of the Qur'an. And she was in the news a week ago or two weeks ago. She was in the Guardian and she was in many different news outlets. Because, and I'll let her tell the story. She put together a document, over 700 pages, of every time Muslims have had to condemn terrorism, as a response to the idea that Muslims don't. So she's the founder of a new initiative, Muslimscondem.com, an institute dedicated to fighting Islamophobia by alleviating misconceptions. Hira will be giving us more insight into exactly what that initiative is today. Without further ado, Hira Hashmi. Assalamu alaikum. Okay, inshallah. So I'm going to start off with a story. A couple months ago, back in around October, I was sitting in class, unaware, unassuming, probably half asleep because 11 p.m. or a.m. is very, very early for a college student. A couple minutes later, a student walked in. He sat a couple seats away from me and I paid him no attention. Until the teacher put us into groups.
He was in my discussion group and the topic of the discussion group was terrorism. So this student, he looked at me, he looked at my hijab, he looked back at me, and he asked, why are Muslims so violent? And if they're not, then why don't they condemn it? And this is something I'm sure a lot of us have heard at some point in our lives, and this was not the first time for me, nor would it be the last. But I was very frustrated. There were a lot of things I wanted to say to him, some that are kind of too harsh to say on the stage. But we started to talk. It's unfair to hold me to that standard, I told him, to ask me to apologize for the actions of a few, to paint an entire religion of 1.6 billion people with the same brush. The conversation was difficult and it became tense very quickly. I went home frustrated. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what resources to point him towards, but I had an idea, and I put my Googling skills to good use, and three weeks later, after a lot of research, bruised fingers, I ended up with a list. A list of Muslims condemning things. All with sources cited, to make my LA teacher proud. It was 712 pages long. Over 5,600 instances of scholars, imams, sheikhs, celebrities, laypersons, condemning violence done in our name. When my friend urged me to make this a public resource, I did what anybody does when they want to make something public news, and I tweeted about it. And it went viral. A lot of news stations picked it up, media stations picked it up, radio stations picked it up. And now, it's an initiative dedicated to fighting Islamophobia. It has its own website, Muslimscondem.com. Alhamdulillah.
But I want to pause here for a moment. I want to pause here for a moment and address something that a lot of us are probably thinking, that should this list have even been made? Was it being apologetic? Did it change anything? Because isn't it hypocritical to ask Muslims to distance themselves from terrorism and violence done in their name, when no other group is held to the same standard? Absolutely, it is hypocritical, and we should continuously point out this hypocrisy. But I want to remind us of an event in the Prophet's life, the story of Abdullah ibn Ubay ibn Salul, the leader of the munafiqeen, the hypocrites. And when the Prophet ﷺ was asked why he didn't have this man executed, a man who had committed treason multiple times, the Prophet ﷺ responded, I do not want the people to say that I used to kill my followers. There's a couple things that we learn from this lesson. That the Prophet ﷺ was justified in punishing this man, but understood that it would tarnish the image of Islam. And that he would be used as ammo, as fuel, against the Muslims of that time, by the Islamophobes. So sometimes as Muslims we do things that we would rather not do for the sake of the ummah. Make du'a for me guys, this is my first time speaking on such a big stage. So sometimes we have to do things even if we don't want to. So when I'm outside, I represent more than myself. And that is a responsibility that comes with being a minority in this community. But it is still our responsibility to reach out and build bridges, to take the initiative, to fulfill that duty simply because we are Muslim.
And that is part of our deen. And it's not easy, it's not easy. Sometimes we don't get the results that we want. That that person that we were discussing with, that we were talking with, our words don't affect them. That they don't change their minds, and they still believe what they believe. And that's okay. Sometimes we have to wait for our results. And sometimes we don't even get it in our lifetime. I had to wait three hours for my tweet to go viral, it was very painful. But to put forth that initial effort, that is required of us. But to bring about results, that is in the hands of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala alone. Remember the story of Ta'if? The Prophet ﷺ went to Ta'if with two goals. First, to spread the message of Islam, to share the message of Islam with the people of Ta'if. And then the second goal was to find a safe haven for the Muslims. Was the Prophet ﷺ able to accomplish these goals? No, he wasn't. But does that mean that his efforts were in vain, that they were futile? Absolutely not. Through the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, when the Prophet ﷺ was leaving the city of Ta'if, a group of jinn encountered him reading Qur'an, and they accepted the message. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala brought about results without him even knowing. And one of the reasons the story is so beautiful, is that even though the people of Ta'if, even though they rejected him so strongly, that they stoned him so much so that his shoes were soaked through with his blood, that he forgave them. When Jibreel ﷺ came to the Prophet ﷺ and told him, Allah sent me, and the angels in control of the mountain are awaiting your command, say the word, and the city of Ta'if will be crushed, the Prophet ﷺ responded,
I rather hope that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala raises from their descendants a people who will worship Allah the One. The Prophet ﷺ never lost hope. Even after failure, he never lost hope, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala fulfilled his hope. And we know that today now, alhamdulillah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Qur'an, in Surah Insan, وَكَانَ سَعَيُّكُمْ مَشْكُورًا Your efforts are appreciated. وَكَانَ سَعَيُّكُمْ مَشْكُورًا Your efforts are appreciated. So even if we think that our words will not change anything, that no one will be affected by them, moved by them, it's still our responsibility to keep the channel of communications open. And that doesn't mean having to lock... It doesn't necessarily mean having to lock yourself up in your room for three weeks, ignoring homework, and just staring at a Google Doc, but it can be as simple as keeping the doors to your mosque open, to your organizations open, and keeping our hearts open. And in no way am I justifying bigotry or ignorance. There's never any place or room for that. But what I am saying is not every person could have been born with a rhetoric of hate. That we should preemptively address these questions and educate, and answer the questions, the difficult ones, even if we know they are coming from a place of hatred. Because that is what Islam teaches us. That is what our deen teaches us. That is what our deen teaches us. So, in the end, even if nobody changes their mind, we should be glad to have done what we could for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, for our community. With the list, alhamdulillah, now it's a website, muslimscondem.com, and now it's a cooperative effort with the Bridge Initiative,
dedicated to fighting Islamophobia through education, through alleviating misconceptions, one by one. And you guys can add to it. You can go to the website, submit your own cases, go to the Bridge Initiative's website, use their resources, distribute it amongst your community, and use it how you need to use it in your communities, and what's needed there, what questions are difficult to answer. Now, I'm not saying that this list alone is going to convince the whole world of what Islam really is. Of course not. It's not meant to do that. And this effort was not done in isolation. This is simply meant to be a resource for people to go back to. When this question does arise, that all Muslims are silent, that they don't do anything about this, we can say no. We can throw at them over 5,000 examples of Muslims condemning terrorism, and metaphorically throw, because we don't condone violence here. So, the point of this list was never more than to be a resource, to show that our presumed silence is out of no fault of our own, that we are at the forefront to fight this battle that insists to twist our faith into something that it's not. So, with the list, did that student ever change his mind? Not exactly. We were in contact a couple months after the incident, and while he was appreciative of my efforts, he still believed what he believed. But I want to leave you with this. A couple months ago, when the website was first launched, a student found the project through the website, and she came and visited our MSA office. She had very strong opinions about the project, and as we started to bump heads, I invited her to one of our events, and she came. And as she started to interact with our members, I saw her slowly start to open up and become more comfortable.
The next day, she sent us an email, and what she wrote completely floored me. She wrote, 15 years ago, in the days following 9-11, my family was probably the first to curse people like you. People who wear hijab, people who have really big beards, people who eat biryani or something, I don't know. But she had really strong opinions, and she said, my family was the first to curse people like you. But today, I will be the first to knock on your door. Thank you.
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