mothers who love please indulge me for a
moment when you see imagine yourself
sitting in a plane a train or a bus and
you see someone dressed like myself come
in sit beside you and utter these
phrases
what goes through your mind are you
uncomfortable are you scared
are you expecting kaboom
are you expecting someone like this why
is it that we expect someone some of you
expect someone like that and not someone
like this the average Muslim of the 1.6
billion Muslim
99% used those expressions and those
symbols differently from the terrorists
why does that happen because extremists
don’t worry this just has my leftover
lunch and my class notes and don’t get
excited I have clothes underneath this
so it’s not a strip show or anything
so vast majority of Muslims around the
world use these expressions and he
symbols in a positive way I dress like
that sometimes when I go to special
occasions the mosque in fact I have
photographs in that in this outfit but
my wife is afraid of me posting them on
Facebook because Islamophobes always
attacked me for the work I do and she
fears that they may take they may take
this and scare people with it
and I only posted it recently for this
how can we solve this problem so if you
bear with me we’ll get to that in a
minute but first a story one of my
friends have shared a story this past
Halloween where she was getting ready to
give out candies to kids a cute kid
dressed up as a dinosaur shows up and
you know as she’s reaching for the candy
the innocent child reaches and whispers
are you dressed like a terrorist for
Halloween because she was in her Jeb
innocent child my friend said she wasn’t
offended with the child she simply
smiled gave the kid more candy and just
felt bad and sorry that kids like this
will grow up thinking that something
somebody different is scary again why
does that happen because our symbols and
expressions have been hijacked by
extremists
a practicing Muslim will say these words
hundreds of times a day allahu ekber al
hamdulillah subhanAllah
masha’Allah non-practicing Muslims say
these words Arab Christians say these
words in fact some of you may say these
words God willing god bless you my
daughter three year old comes back from
daycare sometimes and says when she
hears somebody sneezing god bless you
and then she looks at me he says
alhamdulillah same thing she knows but
people are scared a Muslim is told to
start everything with bismillah
ar-rahman ar-rahim in the name of God
the most merciful the most compassionate
yet these terms of mercy and compassion
how can we solve that I I had a child
this past summer and the first words
were instructed to recite into the years
of the baby is god is great
I did that not party to a cult of death
as terrorists but to show the sacredness
of life and that it comes from God
so these symbols have all been hijacked
have also extremists in them in their
groups who have hijacked their religious
ideas yet when you think of Christians
Jews Hindus Buddhists etc you don’t
think of the people like this who as I
speak today they’re Buddhist extremists
killing Muslims in Myanmar Burma but we
don’t think of that we don’t think of
Hindu extremists who are doing violence
in India we don’t think of Christian
extremists we don’t think of other
extremists you only think of positive
yet when it comes to Muslims we only
think of or many of us think of the
negative fear again it’s because our
symbols have been taken over by
extremists and in fact these extremists
who are a very minimal number in our
community have done so much damage and
the damage they do is that 95 percent of
the victims of these terrorists are
actually Muslims yet their
interpretations their use of these
terminologies is applied to everyone
I don’t usually quote President Trump
approvingly but he himself said
ninety-five percent of the victims of
terrorists are Muslims yet their way is
what why does this happen wise
entrenched well people say the media yes
the media reports the narrative that
terrorists do so terrorists say this is
done in the name of religion media
reports it it reinforces but very few of
us can actually do something about the
media directly the second reason for
this is everyone sticks to their group
white people stick with white people
black people with black people Muslims
with Muslims Christians with Muslims
there’s not as much engagement and
interaction conversations are not taking
place
so a recent study 3/4 of white Americans
do not have non-white friends not
picking on just white people that’s
probably true with other cultures and as
well if that’s the case then we have no
conversations taking place we have no
dialogue taking place
third reason is extremists among every
group every group has extremists and
fanatics they are now talking to each
other
we have extremists in the Muslim
community speaking with extremists in
non-muslim communities be it religious
or secular there dialoguing the rest of
us are busy living our lives and the
extremists are talking to themselves
the conversation must be between us but
it’s between extremists it’s a clash of
again how do we deal begin to deal with
this the theme conversations a line of
research that’s taking place been taking
place for a long time to the 1950s
Gordon Allport started talking about
this theory called contact hypothesis
the idea is you get people to converse
to engage to talk initially not to bore
you with the details initially there are
lots of conditions on criteria that were
required for these conversation to be
become fruitful
but later on more recently university of
california psychologist Thomas Pettigrew
and Linda trope from the University of
Massachusetts analyzed 500 of these
studies and comes to the conclusion that
yes conversations in certain conditions
and criteria can help remove bias fear
and suspicion but even without all those
criteria in all those conditions just
smear communication mere contact can
help things can improve things for all
of us
so that’s what we need to do we need to
converse we need to engage we need the
average Joe speaking with the average
moe
not the extremists talking to each other
we need also Muslims when they do
something positive they when they do
something positive they connect it to
the religion because why extremists
connect their negative stuff with the
religion and then the media reports it
but the positive that Muslims do is not
connected to religion because Muslims
are just like other people we don’t go
around wearing our religion on the
sleeve but this dialogue has to take
place we’re now Muslim saying well I do
this positive because my religion
the Prophet Muhammad taught that we have
three degrees of piety or Islamic
awareness think of karate
you have seven belts from the white belt
to the black belt think of this as three
belts the white belt the brown belt and
the black belt the white belt is a
Muslim one who submits to the will of
God and if somebody does something
harmful to them you take justice the
Prophet said it’s better for you to be a
brown belt
in what men among men is someone whose
when a wrong is done to you you forgive
them and then the Prophet said it’s even
better if you become a black belt a
Muslim when somebody does something
wrong to you you forgive them and you do
something positive and there’s numerous
instances in the life of the Prophet one
simple example I’ll give you the Prophet
used to wake up in the morning Prophet
Muhammad used to wake up in the morning
and his neighbor would put garbage in
his path every day and he would clear
the garbage and he’d go on his way one
day he came out and there was no garbage
so the Prophet asked the Companions hey
what happened to the lady why there’s no
garbage said oh she’s sick so the
Prophet went to visit the lady and
wished her a good recovery
a quick recovery wished her well the
person was shocked a conversation took
place her perception of the Prophet
changed and things changed from there he
was being a black belt
Emel soon a Muslim is taught to be a
Muslim that’s the peak of faith the
ideal of faith so why is it when we
think of Islam when we hear Muslims not
too many think of that positive image of
Islam because in theory it’s there and
in practice it’s there from the life of
the Prophet but also from these people
these people were living Islam they were
being Muslim so the first we have Rukia
a mother of a son who is murdered by a
fourteen-year-old for $60
she sees him in court and rather than
taking revenge or saying I hate you she
says I want to help you you were a child
I want to help you get out of this I
forgive you and I do not hate you
because my way is not the way of hate
it’s the way of Rama mercy remember when
I said bismillahi r-rahman r-rahim in
the name of God the most merciful the
most compassionate God is merciful you
have to be merciful if you want to seek
the mercy of God
so she says this is not my way how come
she doesn’t come to the mind of most of
us or the Arkansas mosque which paid
which again being a blackbelt emotion
paid the $1700 fine of the vandal who
did a hate crime against Hamas and he
couldn’t afford the $1,700 and he was
gonna go to jail the Muslim community
came together paid his $1,700 forgave
and did something positive or what about
Abdul jet mode the father forgives the
murderer of the son hugs him and says
you know when you come out of jail do
why is it that these things don’t come
into our picture well because of the
media because of we don’t know Muslims
we don’t interact with Muslims most
people don’t interact with people most
people don’t converse I’ll end with a
I’ve been living in Valparaiso for a
long time I was in a neighborhood and I
didn’t get to know my neighbors in that
area because I was constantly traveling
back and forth to Canada Toronto so the
free time I have here I’m running back
to Toronto otherwise I’d be at work here
but I did say hi and bye to one of my
neighbors see hi bye you know we were
not rude to each other but nothing
beyond that
one day I parked my car across the
street from his driveway
and my car the one I had the time was a
low sports car gray and in the dark the
visibility is low and he my neighbor
drives a big vehicle so he probably
didn’t see it and he backed into it
smashed the cart significant damage I
wasn’t there but he left a note said hey
I hit your car my apologies please get
some estimates and I’ll take care of it
the next time I saw him he came I hear
what happened I said oh don’t worry
about it he said what huh I was feeling
bad because I parked it I felt partly
responsible although he should still not
have hit me I feel partly responsible my
religion teaches me about justice and I
told him Prophet Muhammad taught me to
treat my neighbor very highly there’s
lots of rights that your neighbor has
over you whether they’re Muslim non
Muslims irrelevant to the neighbor they
have rights over you and one day the
Prophet was sitting and teaching the
companions about the rights your
neighbor has over you and he kept going
down the list they have this right they
have this right they have this right and
one of the companions had stopped him
because next he’s gonna say to you your
neighbour inherits from you
they were scared we don’t want that so I
told him look you’re like my family it’s
okay
I feel partly responsible don’t worry
about it since then that conversation
developed a bigger conversation they
knew I was different
Muslim very decent positive Oh and he
taught me something about Islam from
that conversation somehow end up getting
invited to the church they’re part of I
get to have conversation with over a
hundred people about Islam not just
theory because they have already got
they already part of this church and
they had probably told them hey this is
the interaction I had he told me about
Islam I think you need to hear so I
wouldn’t talk to the church from the one
conversation conversation with a hundred
others then another church from hearing
somebody hearing that talk another
Church invites me Dogon conversation
then from that church a group of elders
who are doing a studies at the
Valparaiso University they asked me to
talk about Islam the conversation one
simple exchange resulted in me being
able to connect and tell about my
practice of Islam the practice that the
vast majority of Muslims have not the
terrorist practice this is what we need
to do we need to have conversations so
you see that different is not scary
we’re not similar in everything but we
have basics the basic goals are the same
and this is not a kumbaya moment that
everything is okay and everything’s
gonna be fine and dandy no there are
haters
there are racists in every community
we’re probably not going to connect with
them but we will connect with the vast
majority of people of goodwill that are
trying to make this world a better place
for everyone so hopefully we will engage
one of my given names is Mohammed so I’m
a moe
so maybe today even if you’re not a Joe
we could have a conversation between Joe
and Moe and take it from there so I hope
that we go from here and we have
conversations and those conversations
help us understand each other and
appreciate you sir thank you very much for listening to me