At what point can this Ummah sufficiently get its act together to warrant God's aid and support so that we can turn a page in history? So that the conscientious Muslim, the Muslim with a living, active, energetic conscience does not feel the alienation and the isolation that such a Muslim would necessarily feel these days. At what point do we wake from our slumber so that we are not at the pit of humanity? Muslims, whether we like it or not, collectively represent the demonstrative proof of what Islam is in our world.
You can write about doctrine, you can describe doctrine, and this doctrine can even sound reasonable, attractive, profound, wise; but the majority of human beings do not form their impressions and understandings from the study of doctrine. The majority of human beings are not sufficiently vested in intellectual issues, so it is not the doctrinal narrative that shapes the consciousness of most human beings living on this earth.
Most human beings structure their systems of knowledge, what they believe they know, from demonstrative examples. Most human beings are quite impressionistic. They form their convictions and beliefs from impressions they get, and these impressions invariably look at sociological dynamics. So whether we like it or not, we Muslims collectively are the demonstrative example of what the doctrines of Islam are. We are the breathing, living examples of what the doctrines of Islam are.
We can have a learned scholar live their entire life investigating doctrinal issues and arguing that such and such is the correct or the wrong doctrine, but that remains a testimony between the scholar and the scholar's God. Unless this doctrine has a direct impact on the collective representation of Islam, that testimony never becomes a representation of Islam because again, for the most part, human beings are impressionistic and they form their belief systems from impressions of what they see around them in the world. Sadly, Muslims are quite oblivious to this.
This is precisely why so much is invested into fighting for the attention of Muslims. Those who live an ideological existence - those who live for a cause - will invest a great deal of resources to fight for the attention of Muslims because those with a cause somehow have convinced Muslims that living for a cause is reactionary, backwards, rhetorical, and demagoguery. Although they have convinced Muslims of that, in reality, they themselves live for a cause. A huge part of this cause is to fight for the attention of Muslims; to shape and craft the attention of Muslims because they know that regardless of how many doctrinal scholars there are, regardless of what these doctrinal scholars say or do not say about Islam, how Islam fares in this world is in direct relationship to how Muslims themselves represent themselves in this world. There are so many indicators, so many issues that surround our existence, that are indeed an act from God. It is as if simply by allowing existence to be what it is, God educates us and draws our attention.
Recently, I have been looking at this book called “The Mauritanian,” which was initially published under the title “Guantanamo Diaries.” It was turned into a feature film starring Jodie Foster, and so the book was reissued with the new title to match the film. The book documents, in painful detail, the arrest of an innocent man from Mauritania, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who is severely tortured in Guantanamo by Americans, and after spending many years in prison, is released without charges. Of course, those who abused and tortured him continue to exist with impunity, without consequences. Interestingly, in the reissue of the book, many segments of the book that were originally censored [the book was originally published with significant sections blackened out by the US government citing national security reasons], are now visible, and what I read in one of the parts that was previously blackened out is extremely alarming. The book itself is already extremely alarming, but in this part, the author talks about how Uyghur Muslims were arrested and held in Guantanamo. What was censored is the author testifying to the fact that the United States government allowed Chinese Intelligence to come to Guantanamo and interrogate the Uyghur Muslims in American custody, and to torture them on American territory.
I know from the human rights field that every time the United States has raised the issue of the Uyghur genocide, the Chinese, as do the Russians, throw back in the face of the United States, “You are not ones to complain. Look at what you did in Guantanamo and what you continue to do in Guantanamo. You want to lecture us about human rights? Look at what you did in Iraq. Look at what you did in Afghanistan. Look what you did with the American platoon in Iraq who raped a 14 year old and murdered her family. All of your soldiers got off with impunity, and you want to lecture us about human rights?” Indeed, if we arrested Uyghur Muslims, transferred them to Guantanamo and allowed Chinese Intelligence to come to Guantanamo to interrogate these Uyghur Muslims and torture them in American custody, and we turn around and pretend that we care about the genocide against the Uyghurs in China, that does not sound very convincing. But the part that concerns me the most is how all of this unfolds.
All of this takes place whether a Muslim chaplain in Guantanamo quits because of how witnesses Muslims are being mistreated and abused - and then he himself is arrested and thrown in Guantanamo - or whether we have Muslims tortured in Guantanamo, or whether we have Chinese officers torturing Muslims in American custody, or whether we have the United States doing whatever it is doing to the Muslim world.
The part that constantly I come back to is Muslim consciousness and Muslim attention. The story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi is not publicized because of Muslim activism. In fact, The Mauritanian was not released from custody because of Muslim activism. It is not even because a brave, brilliant Muslim lawyer represented him. The entire saga of what we Americans did to Muslims in Guantanamo is amazingly empty of a Muslim presence. Muslims continue to talk about the hijab and about the most trivial things in the world; whether God is pleased or displeased by seeing a woman's hair. Muslims continue to be very impressed by anyone that is able to weave stories from the Muslim distant past to give them a short-lived ego boost, but Muslims actually becoming a dynamic factor in the world we live in…?
Truthfully, the only people who do not value Muslim attention are Muslims themselves because those who are not Muslim invest an enormous amount of resources and an enormous amount of money to keep Muslims dumb and ineffective. Recently, there was a conversation that took place between Hamza Yusuf and Jordan Peterson. I started doing a little bit of homework because this conversation, although it says nothing about the Uyghurs, about the plight of Muslims in India, about Kashmir, says nothing about Palestine, had over a million views. Just with a bit of research, it was obvious that one of the reasons it has over a million views is that the conversation is pedantic and largely irrelevant.
We Muslims believe in the Torah. We Muslims believe in the Gospels [Injil]. In Islam, we do taharah, we cleanse ourselves. In Islam, we do prayer, but the way that this conversation reaches over a million views, remarkably is because of algorithms that are carefully written out, invented and activated by those who want to compete for Muslim attention, but for the wrong type of attention for the wrong type of things.
In the same way, if you talk about Palestine, you will find that your voice never reaches far on social media. But if you talk about the trivial and unimportant, it will - because there are those who are ideologically vested, those who actually invest an enormous amount of money in order to convince Muslims that ideology is not cool and that they should live non-ideological lives. Those same people are the people who invest millions of dollars to engineer Islam in the modern world.
All of us remember the picture of Donald Trump, the King of Saudi Arabia and the genocidal President of Egypt in Riyadh putting their hands around a globe. That center, created with Gulf money in Riyadh, which has the ostensible and formal task of monitoring Islamic extremism in the world, has in fact become a center for engineering Islam in the world. This is a center that plays a huge role in the fact that Facebook has its main headquarters in the Emirates, and the fact that the Islam that is manifested from America to France, to Malaysia, to Indonesia, to every part of the Muslim world is a carefully crafted Islam that is also a largely irrelevant Islam. Our government invites Chinese intelligence officers to interrogate Uyghur Muslims in American custody, to torture Uyghur Muslims in American custody.
When the Chinese turn around a few years later and unleash a genocide against Uyghurs, where is the Muslim narrative? Can you imagine if our government did this with any group other than Muslims; the racism, bigotry, and sheer ugliness of a reality like that is unmistakable, but yet you will not find a sense of outrage among Muslims. You will not even find much resonance in the media platforms where Muslims talk back and forth.
Millions of dollars are poured into engineering, shaping, and crafting Muslim attention. Look at this report from CNN titled, “Israelis lament racism problem as Jerusalem march turns ugly.” What this is talking about is that on May 29th, there was a march in Jerusalem. The march, attended by more than 70,000 people, was undeniably racist. The 70,000 marched in Jerusalem demanding that the Aqsa mosque be torn down, yelling “Death to Arabs”; “Arabs are sons of bitches”; “Shireen is dead”; “Palestine is dead.” The 70,000 demonstrators hurled racist slurs on loud speakers and on their signs. A few politicians in Israel said, “It is unfortunate that some of what these people said was racist.” CNN reports on this from the point of view that Israelis are morally conscientious.
It is as if those 70,000 troubled the Israeli consciousness, which cannot be racist. 70,000 Israelis marched yelling, “Death to Muslims”; “Death to Muhammad”; “Death to Shireen Abu Aqleh”; “Death to Palestine,” and horrible racial slurs that I cannot repeat – and the way it is reported is that Israel laments. Not that Israel is an apartheid state. Not that Israel is deeply racist. Not that there is a problem with Jewish theology. Not that there is a problem with the Torah. Not any of that which are all things that, if these were Muslims, would have been said about Muslims. But Israel laments, where did they see Israel lamenting? Where did they catch Israel crying over the racist problem? Nowhere. They have one or two politicians that are quoted as saying, "This is regrettable."
Where are the Muslims? Of course, Muslims were busy listening to the interview with Jordan Peterson. Israel affirms that Jerusalem undivided is an Israeli capital. Israel emphasizes for the millionth time that Muslims have no say over the fate of Jerusalem, but it does not stop there. Israel announces a plan to destroy more homes in the West Bank and to displace a thousand dispossessed Palestinians, to throw them out of their homes, to take their homes and lands. And some American lawmakers urge Biden administration to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
Did the YouTube algorithms suggest the story to you? Did you notice it popping up on your YouTube feed or on any of the other social media venues? Because I am sure that all these venues recommended that Jordan Peterson, Hamza Yusuf conversation to you; but they will not recommend anyone talking about Israel’s plans to demolish more homes and throw out a thousand Palestinians in its continual colonial project, as it laments its racism.
After Israel killed Shireen Abu Aqleh in cold blood, they killed another Palestinian journalist, Ghufran Haroun Warasneh, a 31 year old woman who just graduated from journalism school, on her third day on the job after being hired as a journalist. On her third day, going through an Israeli security point, she is inexplicably shot by Israeli soldiers. Israeli soldiers prevented an ambulance from reaching her for half an hour after she was shot, until she bled out. Israeli soldiers claimed that she had a knife and was planning to stab one of them, but they did not allow anyone to come close to the body to verify that she had anything, and there were no forensic photographs. Just another number.
This is as Israel laments racism, and as American lawmakers urge the Biden administration to prevent the destruction of more Israeli homes. As we are happily enthralled by the Jordan Peterson, Hamza Yusuf conversation, this beautiful young woman is shot dead by the Israelis and where is the Muslim attention? It is nonexistent, but it does not stop there. Seventeen year old Odeh Hamad Odeh was playing soccer with his friends, when he was inexplicably shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the midst of the soccer game. This makes him the fourth Palestinian killed by Israeli fire in 48 hours.
So God looks upon us, and looks upon the Aqsa Mosque, which God described as the holy land - the symbol of unity between Muhammad and Abraham - and God sees that Israelis kill children with impunity, kill journalists with impunity, destroy and steal homes in Palestinian lands with impunity. Where are Muslims? What are they talking about? What are they concerned about? One of the most amazing things, and one of the things that is going to go down in history as confounding is a story that I saw no Muslim attention directed at. Western Muslims remain amazingly oblivious to what Islam is, as they manifest it to be.
Egypt transfers two islands to Saudi Arabia, Tiran and Sanafir. The way it is reported is that these are Saudi islands that were given to Egypt for safekeeping, because the Saudis were afraid that they were going to lose these islands if Israel usurped them and annexed them. So they gave them to the Egyptians to hold for them, to protect these islands. It is also reported that Saudi Arabia demands Tiran and Sanafir back, and Egypt, under the leadership of the genocidal President Sisi, agrees. Pay no mind that Tiran and Sanafir were actually from the time that Napoleon invaded Egypt and drew the first maps of Egypt known to humankind. Pay no mind that Tiran and Sanafir were Egyptian islands before Saudi Arabia ever existed.
Do not mind that this is an entirely invented story about these being Saudi islands, and that Egypt decided to “return” them to Saudi Arabia regardless. What catches one’s attention about this entire story is that in the Western media, the transfer of these two islands from Egypt to Saudi Arabia requires Israeli approval. The way it is reported is that Israel gave its final permission for the islands to be transferred from Egypt to Saudi Arabia. In reality, it is not Israeli approval, it is an Israeli condition. Israel is the one that demanded that Egypt give these islands to Saudi Arabia. Why? Because the islands have a very strategic position. The position of these islands control the gulf of Aqaba. They control Israeli access to the Red Sea and by transferring the islands to Saudi sovereignty, that critical water passage becomes international waters, not Egyptian waters, and by becoming international waters, Israel then has unfettered access to the Red Sea.
So it is Israel that orders the Egyptians to transfer two of their islands to Saudi control. According to the report, Israel accepts security arrangements, allowing Egypt to transfer the islands to Saudi Arabia. “Israel says working with the US, Gulf states is a normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia after the transfer of the two islands.” In order for Israel to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, Israel said, "I want these islands transferred from Egypt to Saudi Arabia so that international peacekeeping forces can be withdrawn from the islands, and the islands become a joint Saudi-Israeli port and entertainment center."
This was part of the Kushner Peace Plan that cut out Palestinians altogether after the Trump administration moved the American embassy to Jerusalem. The Biden administration, instead of quashing the Kushner "peace plan," finds that it is powerless to do anything but continue in the footsteps of what Kushner has laid out: to cut out the Palestinians, continue colonizing Palestinian lands, and continue murdering Palestinian youth and Palestinian journalists.
In fact, as part of this, Israel passed new security arrangements that make it even more difficult for anyone to go to the West Bank, including American citizens; further suffocating and closing off the West Bank so that they can more effectively colonize it. Meanwhile, do you expect any blowback from Arabs? Do you expect any blowback from Muslims in the Middle East? Any blowback from Muslims anywhere around the globe? No.
Egypt would give Saudi Arabia Tiran and Sanafir so Saudi Arabia can pour billions of dollars into Israel. Israel can continue its apartheid regime with impunity, while the Egyptian people are too busy making a living to overthrow the tyrant who has betrayed their country. The Saudi people are too busy listening to rock music, dancing and having halal drinks to do anything about anything. American Muslims are too busy getting good jobs, paying home mortgages, and listening to Jordan Peterson and Hamza Yusuf to do anything about anything. For God's sake, tell me, what excuse have we given God to help us? Wouldn’t it be unjust for God to help a people like that?
Among these reports, we see that Israel and India have reached a new level of closeness. Why? Because the current Hindu regime in India absolutely detests Muslims. They look to Israel as a role model in how to deal with Muslims. They admire how the Israelis subjugated, broke, and destroyed the Palestinians, and hope to learn from Israel how to more effectively carry out an apartheid regime against Muslims in India. Furthermore, they want from Israel surveillance equipment, spying equipment and military aid; and according to the Indian government, Israel and India share the same fate because they have the same enemies.
This is the Indian government that for now has isolated Kashmir. There is no internet in Kashmir now for the second year in a row. Muslims in Kashmir cannot access the internet. The Indian government very openly passes laws that say that all Muslim Indians that converted from Hinduism to Islam, that if they convert back to Hinduism, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship, but if they remain Muslim, they are traitors to mother India and they belong in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia or Indonesia.
The current Indian government has plans to demolish 1,862 mosques, including the Taj Mahal. The current Indian government sponsors genocidal attacks against Muslims every day, and the current Indian government is now forming an alliance with Israel. So China unleashed a genocide against Muslims after the United States allowed China to interrogate Uyghur Muslims in American custody and torture them.
The Burmese government continues a genocide against the Rohingyas and finds that the entire world is so oblivious that they will not even take back a Nobel prize given to a woman who played a critical role in engineering the genocide against Muslims. The Indian government unleashes genocide against Muslims and finds partnership with the Israelis who also have an apartheid regime against Muslims.
In the midst of this, who is partnering with India and Israel? Who is the third part of the Indian-Israeli triangle? Yes, the United Arab Emirates. The United Arab Emirates is the same country that backs up Hamza Yusuf, and Hamza Yusuf is the same person who had a conversation with Jordan Peterson vying for your attention and gets over a million views.
There is a new book that I started looking at yesterday called No Escape, written by a man named Nury Turkel. Just from what I looked at yesterday, I found horrific descriptions of what Muslims in China go through. In this brilliant, wonderful, blessed conversation between Jordan Peterson and Hamza Yusuf, they do not talk about the Uyghurs, about the Rohingyas, about the apartheid regime in Palestine. They do not talk about the disposition and colonization of Palestinians. They do not talk about Shireen Abu Aqleh, they do not talk about the Palestinian youth that get murdered every single day. They do not talk about the genocide in India. They do not talk about Kashmiris. They do not talk about any of that, but Muslims are happy. “What a wonderful, brilliant conversation it was.” Tell me, if you are the devil himself, could you possibly have weaved a better scenario than to have Muslims butchered around the world like this?
The top country that executes human beings in the world is China. Why? Because a lot of the people that China executes are Muslims. But after China, it is Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. China, which kills Muslims, followed by Muslim countries are the top countries that kill human beings in the world. If you were Satan, how could you have orchestrated it better than to have Muslims suffering from the US in Guantanamo; to have a treacherous, disgusting deal as what is going on between Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates, with Tiran and Sanafir; and then to have everything we have talked about? We have not even talked about Islamophobia and racism against Muslims in the US.
Yet at the same time, to have those Muslims who live in the United States have their attention not directed towards any of this, but instead directed towards a false sense of victory because they heard someone talk about how wonderful doing wudu or ghusl is, and how Muslims do ghusl once a week and how amazing this is. Something is really wrong in the way we raise our children. Something is really wrong in the way we allow Muslim consciousness to work. Something is truly wrong in the way that we are Muslims today. How can this be? I do not know. How can it be?