(Arabic) “Oh, mankind!
We have created you from a male and a female,
and we made you into nations and tribes, so that you may get to know one another.”
(English) “Oh, mankind!
We have created you from a male and a female,
and we made you into nations and tribes,
so that you may get to know one another”
– chapter 49, verse 13, the Quran.
This verse is over 1,400 years old.
It happens to be one of my favorites.
It’s as meaningful as it can be,
during the times that we are living right now.
We are currently living in a time
where anti-Muslim sentiment is at an all-time high.
In fact, the last time I can recall not feeling this way
is in September 10, 2001.
My biggest worry was if I had made enough cupcakes
for my youngest daughter’s birthday,
her fourth birthday on the following day, September, 11.
Little did I know that on the following day
my whole world was going to come crumbling down.
I’d be forced to walk into a world
full of contradictions, anguish, and fear;
a world where Muslims became “the other.”
I stepped into a world
that would challenge my faith and many friends’.
On one hand,
some of the worst crimes against humanity
were being perpetrated in the name of my faith
because of a warped and distorted ideology;
an ideology that would rob Muslims all over the world
from two of the most revered words in Islam:
(Arabic) “Allāh u Akbar,” (English) “God is great.”
These words are a bedrock of strength and comfort.
Muslims all over say them daily.
In our call to prayer, we say, “Allāh u Akbar, allāh u Akbar,”
In wonder, we say, “Allāh u Akbar,”
in frustration, we say, “Allāh u Akbar!”
(Laughter)
It feels good.
(Laughter)
In sorrow, we say, “Allāh u Akbar,”
and in affirmation, we say, “Allāh u Akbar.”
But “Allāh u Akbar,” unfortunately,
would come to connote terror for some,
so Muslims all over the world would become fearful
of just reiterating these words in public.
Because just saying these words could clear a room
– Didn’t work here –
(Laughter)
could get a Muslim escorted off a plane,
or worse, start an interrogation.
On the other hand,
I was being held accountable for the heinous acts, heinous crimes
of an extremist element
that was as foreign to me as the next American.
Everything about me was being judged:
my faith, my choice to wear hijab;
even my existence in America was questioned.
Mind you, my grandfather immigrated here over 100 years ago:
June 23, 1914.
His route was Palestine, Liverpool, England,
came on a ship called “The Dominion,” and docked into Philadelphia.
We are part of the American fabric.
(Applause)
I recall a time, 2002: I was in my car,
with my three children, my son and two daughters,
all under the age of 10.
I was driving, and I stopped at an intersection, at a light.
This man comes and stops right next to us,
and he spat out,
“Go home! Go to your country, get out of here!”
This man made a decision that we did not belong here
because of my hijab.
As distressful, as disturbing as his ignorant words were,
what shook me
was when I turned around to check at my children,
I saw something I had never seen before:
my children were stricken with fear.
That was a defining moment.
You could only imagine how I felt.
Muslims all over had been feeling that way,
and some still are,
but instinctively, we wanted to remedy the situation,
we wanted to make it all better, because we don’t like problems.
Naively, we went, and we took out our American flags
and we hung them all over
as though to validate our patriotism.
It didn’t work.
Because the problem had much deeper roots.
And even though the Muslim American community
is one of the most law abiding communities,
one of the most educated communities in America.
I mean, we produce multitudes
of doctors, lawyers, engineers, educators,
we are part of the defense forces;
some have given the ultimate sacrifice, their life,
as in the story of Captain Humayun Khan, 27.
He was killed in Iraq, trying to protect his troops in 2004
– (Arabic) Allāh u Akbar! –
leaving behind him a Gold Star mother, and father, and family, and friends.
But that, still, wasn’t enough
because some of us, would choose
to dehumanize, to marginalize rather than to empathize.
And even when young Muslim Americans did everything right,
as in the case of Deah Barakat. 23, second-year dental student;
his bride of six weeks, Yusor, just got into dental school;
her sister Razan, 19,
first-year aspiring architect major;
– all lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina –
[even when] they did everything right
(Arabic) Allāh u Akbar!
They volunteered,
they fed the homeless,
they provided dental care to refugees abroad,
they cooked out of their own kitchens to feed the homeless.
But it wasn’t enough.
Because on a ill-fated day, Tuesday, February 10, 2015,
their neighbor would choose to barge into their condominium,
their safe haven,
and shoot each and everyone of them execution style.
(Arabic) Allāh u Akbar!
(English) Their perpetrator’s social media spewed
with vitriolic, Islamophobic, racist hate.
(Arabic) Allāh u Akbar!
(English) Dehumanizing the other is an insidious culprit.
On some level, I honestly think we’ve become desensitized to it.
The more we condone the dehumanization of the Muslim,
the more we tolerate the violence, the military invasions
that are occurring and have occurred in Muslim and Arab countries.
So the [deaths] hundreds of thousands of innocent children, and women, and men
are all justified under the pretext of collateral damage.
(Arabic) Allāh u Akbar!
(English) This is wrong.
This is not the kind of tolerance we should be striving for.
Everyone of those children, women, and men had a name, had a face,
had a story, had a purpose.
What was our purpose?
Muslim Americans are just the latest knot
on a long rope of injustices.
And now we are hearing rampant demagoguery,
that’s just going to add more knots and more injustices.
We hear talk about building more walls,
apartheid rhetoric, surveillance, enforced IDs,
mass deportations, closing borders, prohibition of religious expression,
banning immigration, banning Muslim immigration,
denying refuge to innocent children, women and men,
who are fleeing the worst catastrophic humanitarian crisis
we are going through in this era.
(Arabic) Allāh u Akbar!
(English) So, what can we do about this? How do we unravel the knots?
It is time we stop humanizing ourselves
at the expense of dehumanizing any other.
We cannot succumb to our fears
Because when we do, our judgment is impaired.
For three years, after 2001,
I would take my daughter’s cupcakes to school on September 12,
instead of September 11, her birthday.
And I did that so no one would ever misconstrue my intention.
It wasn’t until my own daughter questioned me
about why it is that I did not deliver her cupcakes on her birthday,
like she was entitled to;
that was my real defining moment.
But it occurred to me that, unintentionally,
I had invalidated one of the happiest days of my life, her birthday;
as if I gave myself permission to rewrite the beginning of her story.
No one has the right to rewrite anybody’s story.
(Applause)
How are we going to unravel these knots?
We go back to proactively getting to know one another.
We need to start listening, listening to each other’s stories.
We need to allow other voices to permeate through our walls.
Each and every one of us has their amazing, unique story.
Individually, we are unique.
Collectively, we share the common story, we share an American story.
We make America great with our stories.
We share Yusor, Deah, and Razan’s story.
It’s a story of immigrants, of compassion, of giving, of loving, of caring.
We need to go back and find the value in each other’s stories,
But just as important,
we need to create value in our individual stories.
What is your story?
“Oh, mankind!
We have created you from a male and a female,
and we have made you into nations and tribes,
so that you may get to know one another.”
(Arabic) Allāh u Akbar!
(Applause)
”
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