Social Justice in Islam1

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, Muslims were great. They excelled in scholarship and science. They were superior in every sense. Take the case of Córdoba in Islamic Spain for example: a population of one million inhabitants, a main library with a collection of 200,000 volumes, countless other bookstores, 3,800 mosques, 600,000 palaces and mansions, 200,000 houses, 700 public baths, 80,000 shops, hotels, institutions of higher learning, running water in each house… Muslims ruled the world, from southern France and Spain, to North Africa, the Near East, the Middle East, and the Far East. Muslims had military might and nobody messed with them. Ah, but alas! Rather than rooting themselves in their religion, they were weakened, they were divided, they were conquered and colonized, and the imposing Islamic empire crumbled apart. And look at Muslims now. It’s time to wake up, smell the coffee and take a good, hard-look in the mirror. Have you seen the state of the Muslim Ummah? Let me share with you some statistics about the Islamic world.

According to the United Nations’ Development Program and the Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development:

-No Arab country spends more than 0.2 % of its gross national product on scientific research, and most of that money goes toward salaries. The U.S. spends more than ten times that amount.

-Fewer than one in twenty Arab university students pursue scientific disciplines.

-There are only 18 computers per 1,000 people in the Arab world. The global average is 78 per 1,000.

-Only 370 industrial patents were issued to people in Arab countries between 1980 and 2000. In South Korea during that same period, 16,000 industrial patents were issued.

- No more than 10,000 books were translated into Arabic over the entire past millennium, equivalent to the number translated into Spanish each year.

According to Bernard Lewis:

-Muslims make up one quarter of the world’s population, but they possess only 6% of the world’s wealth.

-Two-thirds of the world’s poor who live on less than $2 US a day are Muslims. This income is depreciating by 2% annually, the greatest depreciation suffered by individuals in the so-called developing world.

-Not a single Muslim country is among the 30 wealthiest nations.

-Out of the 5,000 most popular products in the world, not one is produced by a Muslim country.

-Except for oil, caviar, and Persian rugs, the 57 member countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference offer nothing to the international marketplace.

-The debt of the Muslim countries is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The level of self-sufficiency in these countries is in perpetual decline.

-The life expectancy for a person in the Muslim world is twenty years shorter than a person living in the West. This is the direct result of poor health, nutrition, education, and work conditions, not to mention subjugation and repression.

-40% of young educated Muslims cannot find adequate employment in their own countries. They either remain unemployed in their countries or are forced to migrate to the West.

-Unemployment in the West varies between 5 to 12%. The Muslim world has an unemployment rate of 20% and it continues to increase.

-Muslim graduates and laborers are in desperate need of employment. Unable to provide homes for themselves, they are unable to marry and establish families. Many young women never find husbands. 40% of Iranian women under of twenty will probably never marry. The statistics are the same for Saudi Arabia.

-According to the World Health Organization, Oman is the only Muslim country which offers adequate, up-to-date healthcare to its citizens.

-The Muslim world has little to no political influence. Muslims are excluded from joining the club of decision makers dominated by a handful of Western nations. Take, for example, the Western apprehension regarding Turkey’s adhesion to the European Union. They won’t even accept us if we are secular.

-With the downfall of the Communist Block and the emergence of the U.S. as the sole economic and military superpower in the world, the Europeans got together, despite their linguistic, cultural, and religious differences, despite centuries of warfare and hostility, and formed the European Union. What prevents Muslims from forming an Islamic Union to defend our interests in the world?

-Of the thirty worst conflicts in the world, 28 of them concern Muslim people or Muslim countries.

-Two-thirds of the world’s political prisoners languish in prisons in the Muslim world.

-In the past three decades, more than 2.5 million Muslims have been killed in wars within the Muslim world, making Muslims the most killed people on the planet.

So, as Muslims, we can easily identify with victims of terrorism. We can easily empathize with suffering of others. Rather than empathizing with us, however, we are often made the scapegoat, and accused of being terrorists when we are the greatest victims of terrorism on the planet.

-80% of the world’s refugees are Muslims.

-The Muslim world is the least productive part of the world when it comes to scholarship, scientific research and technology.

-Muslims have the highest rate of illiteracy in the world with over 50% of Muslim women being unable to read or write. And yet the very first word of the Revelation was Iqra! Read! Read! Read!

-Muslims do not read and they surely do not write. There are more books published in Greece in one year than the entire Islamic world combined.

-The Muslim world is rich in natural resources, but they are underexploited or unexploited. Just look what Chávez has done with petroleum. He has changed the political situation for all of Spanish America. He sells oil at the most reduced rate to developing nations and hikes up the price for the developed nations. He has boosted the economies in the entire region.

-The Arabs, on the other hand, have even greater resources, but they don’t do use them to wield any real influence, to help Muslims countries develop. For the Arabs, it ain’t about Islam, it’s about Uncle Sam. It’s all about money, honey.

-Africa has huge natural resources, many of them in Muslim zones, but they are all kept as a reserve for neo-colonial interests.

-Culturally-speaking, artistically-speaking, Muslims have little to no influence in the mass-media. Yes, Muslims have al-Jazeerah, and alhamdulillah for that, but al-Jazeerah is not an Islamic network. They are not committed to the Muslim cause. They are secular Arab nationalists.

Yes, that is all pretty bad. Makes us feel pretty sad. For some of us, the very mention of this makes us very mad… But that is why Muslims came to America. Oh yeah, and are they better off than they were before? Let us look at some statistics about Islam in America compiled by Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Adair Lumis in their sociological study on Islamic Values in the United States. According to their survey:

-63% of Muslims born in the U.S. describe themselves as religiously deviant, defined as eating haram, going clubbing and drinking alcohol, compared to 37% of foreign-born Muslims.

-54% of Muslim immigrants believe that Muslim men, 18 and over, should be able to date. 78% of first-generation Muslims thinks that it is okay and 95% of second generation approve of such behavior. And 51% of Muslims as a whole believe that a Muslim girl should be able to date boys.

-1/5th of Muslims agree with abortion.

-1/5th of Muslims believe that Muslim women should be able to marry Jewish and Christian men.

-Young Muslim women, especially first and second generation American-born, often wear mini-skirts and shorts in hot weather.

-Only 4% of Muslims born in the U.S. believe that women should only go out wearing hijab compared to 41% of Pakistanis.

-33% of Muslims celebrate Christmas, Christmas tree and all.

-40% of Muslims think Islamic school is not important.

-49% of second-generation American Muslims consumed alcohol in the past six months; 45% of first generation Muslim Americans, as well as 26% of immigrants. If we divide these percentages on the basis of gender and origin, we see that 24% of Muslim immigrant men drink alcohol compared to 62% of those born in America. And most surprisingly of all, 27% of Muslim immigrant women drink alcohol, compared to 40% of those who were born in America.

-1/4th of Muslims do not read food labels to see whether the product contains lard or pork by-products.

-50% of Muslims do not eat halal meat.

-7% of Muslims have eaten pork in the past 6 months.

-Only 50% of Muslims fast during the month of Ramadan; 33% of U.S. born Muslims fast; 47% of Lebanese fast; 59% of other Middle East Arabs fast, while 73% of Pakistanis fast.

-31% of Muslims read the Qur’an; 16% of U.S. born Muslims; 36% of Lebanese Muslims; 33% of other Middle East Arabs, and 48% of Pakistanis.

-24% of Muslims pray five times a day; 21% of U.S. born Muslims; 27% of Lebanese; 6% of other Middle East Arabs; and 34% of Pakistanis.

According to a nationwide survey conducted in France, which is included in Paul Balta’s L’Islam dans le monde:

-Only 37% of Muslims in France describe themselves as practicing Muslims

-60% of Muslims in France fast during the month of Ramadan

-41% of Muslims in France pray five times a day

-35% of Muslims in France drink alcohol

-45 % of Muslims in France are opposed to girls wearing hijab at school

-25 % of Muslims in France are opposed to girls wearing hijab in public

The studies have been done. The results are in. The facts are clear. If you are 100% Muslim, your children will be 50% Muslim, and your grandchildren will not be Muslims at all. We have seen this phenomenon over and over again, starting with the Muslim pioneers from Syria and Lebanon who settled in the Mid-West in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Yes, Muslim settlers, insha’ Allah, that is a story I can share with you in the future. They came by the tens of thousands and they are all gone, with the exception of a handful of them. Most of them were assimilated; they lost their language, their culture, and most seriously, their Islam. They lost their faith, their iman, their din. They intermarried with Christians. They reneged on their religion. They converted themselves into kuffar.

Do not think for a second that your Islam is safe. It might be safe in the Muslim world. It might be safe back home. Over there, if you were born Muslim, you will stay Muslim, it is a simple as that. People do not change religion. People do not go shopping for a religion. In the Muslim world, if you change your religion, you cut off your family, your clan, your tribe, your social class. There would be nowhere for you to go. In the Muslim world, you just go with the flow. In the Western world your children are like fish swimming upstream all the time. Some will get tired. Some will be overcome by the current. If you reject your religion here, you will fit in perfectly well into the secular way of Satan.

So trust me, pay head to what I say. I speak by experience. If you live in the Western world, you will face trials and tribulations. Your children will be tested. I know you do not like to hear this, but I am telling it to you anyway. This is information you need to know. Muslims need to engage in self-criticism. What I am teaching is medicine and sometimes the medicine does not taste too good, it does not go down too well, but your spiritual health and survival depends on it. If you see the state of our din you will understand the state of the Ummah. There is a clear correlation. Allah helps those who help themselves. You have heard it before and you will hear it again,

“Allah does not change the condition of a people unless they change it themselves” (13:11).

As Almighty Allah said,

“Surely we created man of the best stature. Then we reduced him to the lowest of the low. Save those who believe and do good works, and theirs is a reward unfailing” (95:4-6).

There is no doubt that the Golden Age of Islam is long gone. There is no doubt that the Ummah has been ransacked, pillaged, and plundered. There is no doubt that Muslims have been degraded and humiliated by Western imperialism and neo-colonialism. There is no doubt that Muslims are a fallen people who have been reduced to the lowest of the low. But Almighty Allah is Merciful. Almighty Allah is Compassionate and Forgiving. So what do Muslims need to do? Where do Muslims need to go from here?

If Islam is to survive and to succeed, not only in the West, but in the world, they need to be Muslimized. They need to re-root themselves in their religious tradition. They need to Islamize themselves and their families first and foremost. They need to build institutions, masjids, musallahs, and Islamic centers: the mosque is the center of the community of believers. They need to educate their children, not to be foreigners but not to be assimilated either, to be well-integrated Muslim Americans. And to do that, they need schools, Islamic schools, which will teach a universal Islam, not a sectarian Islam, an Islam based on the fundamentals of faith shared by all Muslims, be they Sunni, Sufi or Shi‘i: Tawhid, the belief in One God; Nubuwwah, the belief in all the Prophets, from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to Jesus to Muhammad, the Final Messenger of God; and Qiyyamah, the belief in the Day of Judgment. As long as you pray, you fast, you pay zakat, you promote the good and you forbid the wrong, you are a Muslim. It does not matter if you pray like this or you pray like that.

Muslims should be at the forefront of Islamic unity, saying enough with the butchery, enough with Muslims massacring Muslims. We have enough with the kuffar killing Muslims. When the kuffar kill Muslims, they do not ask them if they’re Sunni, Shi‘ah, or Sufi: “You Muslim? You dead!” Muslims are all the same to them. Shame on those Muslims who slay their own brethren: blowing up babies; butchering women, men, and children, while in prayer! You can not kill someone who professes the shahadah: la ilaha ila Allah, Muhammad Rasul Allah. That is exactly what our enemies want. When they see Sunnis and Shi‘ahs killing each other, the kuffar are laughing all the way to our cemetery. Trust me! They want a civil war in Iraq. That is exactly what they are trying to incite. So once Muslims straighten themselves out as individuals, as a community, they can reach out to others and invite them into the family of Islam. But how is this to be done?

Yes there is a time for tabligh and da’wah. Yes there is a time for propagation, publication, and preaching. But first and foremost, Muslims need to lead by example. They need to be examples for their own families, for their own children. They must become socially active and contribute to their communities. And this is the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him and his household. Muhammad was a great man before he received the revelation. He was an honest man, a trustworthy man. He cared about the poor, the oppressed, and the downcast, regardless of their religion. He cast his lot with the Wretched of the Earth. He cared about black people and he cared about women at a time where both were considered chattel, property to be bought and sold, used and abused, disgraced and discarded.

The Prophet preached to his family first and foremost. He then preached to his friends and only later to the people. He would never have attracted a following had he not been the very embodiment of Islam, the Qur’an walking. So, yes, Muslims must preach, but if they really want to reach, to have a permanent impact, they need to teach by example, by doing good deeds, by becoming socially committed and socially active. They need to work with the meek, and the dispossessed. They need to work with blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans. They need to work with women. They need to work with the poor and the homeless. They need to work with prisoners and ex-cons. And they need to defend the environment. And this is completely Qur’anic.

Islam does not believe that faith is sufficient for salvation. According to Islam, faith, the belief in One God, must always be accompanied by works, by good deeds, by righteous action. As Almighty Allah says in al-Furqan, the Holy Qur’an:

Truly pious is he who believes in God, and the Last Day; and the angels, and revelation, and the prophets; and spends his substance - however much he himself may cherish it - upon his near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and the beggars, and for the freeing of human beings from bondage. (2:177)

The believers are:

“They believe in Allah and the Last Day; they enjoin what is right, and forbid what is wrong; and they hasten (in emulation) in (all) good works: They are in the ranks of the righteous” (3:114).

The believers are

“Those who spend (freely), whether in prosperity, or in adversity; who restrain anger, and pardon (all) men; for Allah loves those who do good (3:134).”

They are:

“Those who believe, and do deeds of righteousness, and establish regular prayers and regular charity, will have their reward with their Lord: on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve” (2:277).

They are those who:

“Do good deeds, to establish regular prayers, and to practice regular charity; and they constantly served Us (and Us only)” (21:73).

If you peruse the Qur’an, you will see that Almighty Allah consistently associated faith with good deeds:

“those who believe and do deeds of righteousness” (4:57; 4:122; 4:173; 5:93);

“If any do deeds of righteousness, be they male or female - and have faith, they will enter Heaven, and not the least injustice will be done to them” (4:124);

“To those who believe and do deeds of righteousness hath Allah promised forgiveness and a great reward.” (5:9).

After faith, people are judged on the basis of their deeds. As Almighty Allah says:

“To all are degrees according to their deeds: for thy Lord is not unmindful of anything that they do” (6:132);

“Verily this Qur’an doth guide to that which is most right, and give the Glad Tidings to the Believers who work deeds of righteousness, that they shall have a magnificent reward” (17:9);

“As to those who believe and work righteous deeds, they have, for their entertainment, the Gardens of Paradise” (18:107);

“On those who believe and work deeds of righteousness, will (Allah) Most Gracious bestow love.” (19:96);

“But those who believe and work deeds of righteousness - to them shall We give a Home in Heaven, lofty mansions beneath which flow rivers, to dwell therein for aye;- an excellent reward for those who do (good)!” (29:58);

“For those who believe and work righteous deeds, there will be Gardens of Bliss” (31:8).

Almighty Allah tells us to

“Spend your wealth in the way of Allah” (2:195);

“And promote what is good and forbid what is wrong” (31:17).

In order to be good Muslims, true Muslims, pious Muslims, Muslims need to lose themselves in the service of others. Every human being is a manifestation of Allah. It is by serving people that you serve Allah. As Almighty Allah says in a famous hadith qudsi,

O Son of Adam, I fell ill and you visited Me not. He will say: O Lord, and how should I visit You when You are the Lord of the worlds? He will say: Did you not know that My servant had fallen ill and you visited him not? Did you not know that had you visited him you would have found Me with him? O son of Adam, I asked you for food and you fed Me not. He will say: O Lord, and how should I feed You when You are the Lord of the worlds? He will say: Did you not know that My servant asked you for food and you fed him not? Did you not know that had you fed him you would surely have found the reward with Me? O son of Adam, I asked you to give Me to drink and you gave Me not to drink. He will say: O Lord, how should I give You to drink when You are the Lord of the worlds? He will say: My servant asked you to give him to drink and you gave him not to drink. Had you given him to drink you would have surely found that with Me. (Muslim)

Twenty years ago, even ten years ago, there was not a single soup-kitchen operated by Muslims in North America. There was not a single thrift-shop like the Salvation Army operated by Muslims. There was not a single Free Medical Clinic operated by Muslims. Alhamdulillah, Muslims have made some progress. In South Central Los Angeles, a group of Muslim UCLA students started a medical clinic a decade ago. Today, the non-religious University Muslim Medical Association Community Clinic treats some 16,000 patients, mostly Hispanics, regardless of their legal or illegal status. The clinic does not seek Muslim converts. Merely by being good, by helping the community, hundreds and thousands of Hispanics have embraced Islam. In the 1990s, there were an estimated 80,000 Latino Muslims in the United States. That number has now reached 200,000.

So, when it comes to the survival and success of Islam in the world and particularly in the West, your options are clear. You can convert yourself into a Malcolm X or a Martin Luther King, start a grass roots movement, get popular support and put pressure on the establishment. The problem, of course, is that both of them ended up dead. That is enough to dissuade a lot of people. Plus, since Sept. 11th, 2001, and the implementation of the Patriot Act, I doubt many people would be inclined to engage in such activism. So, what are your other options?

Well, you can join a large group or association which has lots of money. With that money, you can accomplish many projects. It does not have to be a Muslim organization. Social efforts do not have to be faith-based. Muslims are perfectly capable of functioning within existing organisms and even assume leadership positions. Or, if you are loaded with money, you can become a philanthropist, engage in charitable work, provide food for the poor, shelter for the homeless, and so forth. Jewish people have money. In fact, they have the highest family income of all ethnic groups, earning twice as much as other Americans. But Arab Americans also have money.

The average Arab American household earns more per year than the average American household. Close to 30% of Arab Americans earn over $75,000 per year, compared to 22% of other Americans. The mean income for an Arab American is 8% higher than the national average. Now when you invest your money, there should be no strings attached. You do not do like those missionaries who come with a spoon in one hand and the Bible in the other. If you open a food bank, it is for all people, not just Muslims. If you open a shelter for battered women, it is for all women, not just Muslim women.

You do good for the sake of good. You do good for a reward promised by Allah. And you do good in your country first and foremost. And by “your country,” I mean the United States of America, not Bangladesh, Pakistan or Afghanistan. I know many immigrants come to the West with the idea of making money and going back “home.” Boy do I have news for you. If your children were born and raised in the West, their notion of “home” will not be the same as yours. Their home is here. So, if you want to invest in your children, in their future, you invest in their home, the society in which they live which is riddled with social problems. I have never seen Imam Siraj Wahaj trying to fight crack in the Congo. He was battling with brothers in Brooklyn. Do you have any idea how many people he attracted to Islam simply by cleaning up his hood from dope dealers and crack heads?

Yes, but we should help Muslims first, you say. Nothing stops you from helping Muslims, but helping Muslims here, along with anyone else who needs help. They do not have to become Muslims. They do not have to convert. But, with all the enemies we have, we could sure use some friends, some people who sympathize with us on the issues. And this is entirely Islamic, fully justified by fiqh. If you study Islamic jurisprudence, you will see that zakat, khums, and sadaqa can be used in the service of Allah (fisabilillah) or to “gain over, to reconcile, or to incline the hearts to Islam.” As Almighty Allah says in the Qur’an: muallafa qulbuhum (9:60).

Giving charity to feed people, here and abroad, is a monumental waste of money, unless it is directly linked to the creation of institutions and infrastructure. If you give a man a fish, you feed him for one day. If you teach a man to fish, he can fish for his whole life. So, you need to see results, you need to follow up.

You do not just give da’wah to some black brother in a jail house cell and once he is free he is back to his usual hell. Not only are they traumatized for life for what they experienced in prison, typically for non-violent crimes, they are released and reneged upon, which explains their high rate of recidivism. There is no infrastructure in place to ensure their proper integration into society. So, either you work with existing groups who try to help ex-cons find employment, housing, health care or you create an association to support such people.

We have desperately impoverished people in the United States, people who have been disenfranchised. Poverty pushes people into drugs, prostitution, crime and delinquency. 100,000 people die every year in the United States because they are denied medical treatment, because they do not have medical insurance. Let us not even get into the issue of the mentally ill. Most homeless people suffer from psychiatric disorders. It is what led them to be homeless. They used to be cared for by the state, but thanks to President Reagan, all the mental hospitals were closed and the mentally ill were set free on the street. Of course, all of this requires money. If you do not have money, or you do not have access to money through an association, what do you do?

Well, another approach would consist in attaining public office allowing you to accomplish these very same tasks using state or federal funds. In order to do so, of course, Muslims must start to work within the existent political framework or create a political group which would have the possibility of winning local, state, or even federal elections. We should have Muslims running at every level. We should have Muslims running as Democrats, as Independents, and even as Republicans. The Democratic Party is full of liberal Christians and the Republican Party is full of conservative Christians. The Christians have their bases covered. The same applies for Jewish people. They are well-represented in each party. Whether the Republicans win or the Democrats win, the White House will defend Jewish and Israeli interests. Let us not even get into Political Action Committees. There is not a single PAC defending Islamic interests. And it is a crying shame. Muslims do have money but they do not have any influence. We have to convert that cash into clout, into political power.

Yes, but we are a minority. Well, so what? So are the Jews and they are well-represented, and it is not the result of a conspiracy, it is the result of education and hard-work. These people were elected by the masses, primarily by Christians, but also by voters of all other religions. If they were elected, it was because they were active in their communities, were well-organized, well-financed, and well-liked.

We need to look at what other communities have done to get ahead and emulate their example. Alhamdulillah, for organizations like CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, but that’s just a beginning. Tabarak Allah for Charles Bilal of Kountze, Texas, who became the nation’s first Muslim mayor in 1991 and for Osman Siddique, who became the first Muslim U.S. Ambassador in 1999. To Fiji: but we will take what we can get! But there are 24 Jewish ambassadors! There are 10 Jewish Senators and 25 members of the House of Representatives are Jewish. I am not saying this to criticize the Jewish people. I am saying this to criticize us Muslims for lack of initiative and for socio-political apathy. I am saying this to compare.

Considering that Muslims have been in this country since the time of slavery, that there were a hundred thousand Muslim pioneers in the 1800s and early 1900s, that there are maximum of 5 million Muslims in the U.S. right now, we are grossly underrepresented. One mayor, one ambassador, a few locally and state-elected representatives, and that is it, man… But the Jews have hundreds of politicians: presidential candidates, cabinet members, senior administration officials, senators, representatives, ambassadors, governors, mayors, economists. They shape this country and its policies. The Jewish population of the U.S. is roughly the same as the Muslim population. There is no reason Muslims cannot excel like they have.

Muslims were great. They are still great, but their greatness has come latent. They are sleeping geniuses. They need to awake from their slumber and reclaim our position in the world. Muslims will rule the world again. It was promised to Muslims by Almighty Allah:

“And we wrote in the Psalms after the Reminder that surely My righteous servants will inherit the earth” (21:105).

The Earth belongs to Muslims, on the condition that they are righteous, on the condition that they are pious, God-fearing, and just. Human beings were appointed the representatives of God on Earth:

“And your Lord said to the Angels: ‘I am making a successor in earth’” (2:30).

Muslims were chosen as the Middle Nation, the Nation of Moderation:

“Thus have we made of you a nation justly balanced” (2:143).

But Almighty Allah has warned humanity:

“We, even we, created them, and strengthened their frame. And when we will, we can replace them, bringing others like them in their stead” (76:28);

that

“Nay! I swear by the Lord of the rising places and the setting places of the planets that we are able to replace them by (others) better than them. And we are not to be outrun” (70:40).

How do you expect God to help Muslims if they are corrupt pig-eating alcoholics who do not even pray? A‘udhu billah.

Besides the political struggle, there is also the academic struggle, the intellectual jihad. And it is a war. There is no doubt about it. Muslims are being attacked militarily, politically, economically, and academically. There are very few Muslim professors in the Western world and the vast majority of the ones in those positions are cultural Muslims at best and secular Muslims at worst. They simply do not have the Islamic spirit. I have a colleague who is so ashamed of being an Arab, who is so ashamed of being a Muslim, that he wants to change his name to Alexander St-George. Your name is your identity. It is the indicator of your religious affiliation. Hold on to it like you would hold on to your life. We need pride, people, we need pride. And you can not be proud by sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich, by lowering your head, by keeping a low profile, by practicing pious dissimulation. Power does not respect weakness. Strength only respects strength. So, if you want to be respected, you need to have self-esteem, self-respect. You need to be smart, educated, and successful.

85% of Arab Americans have a high school degree. That is the same as the national average. Masha’ Allah. 40% of American High School graduates go to college. However, 85% of Jews go to college. 25% of Arab Americans have a bachelor’s degree, compared to 24% of Americans at large: 1% percent higher. And 17% of Arab Americans have a graduate degree. Now that is good, that is twice the American average of 9%. For Jewish people, however, it is 25%. 20 to 60% of Ivy League graduates are Jewish; they form 13% of law school professors; they have claimed 10-15% of Nobel Prizes, and the list goes on and on and one. Muslims have received 9 Nobel Prizes, so subhana Allah for that. So, in some areas Muslims are doing fine. In others, they are lagging terribly behind.

It is essential for Muslims to become educated, to excel in all fields, and to associate themselves with universities, thus providing a means to address academic and cultural issues. As the Prophet said, “The ink of a scholar is more precious than the blood of a martyr.” But where are the scholarships? I have scoured thousands of pages of encyclopedias of scholarships and have not found a single one offered by Muslims for Muslims. There are all kinds of scholarships for children of veterans, for blacks, for Jews, Latinos, for every type of minority imaginable, but not a single scholarship for Muslims to study science, to study math, to study engineering, to study nuclear physics… For the love of God, if you have money, start an endowment!

As far as I am concerned, these are the only viable approaches: fund social projects with your own money, join other organizations and use their money for social projects, assume roles of political leadership, become a scholar, an academic, or an intellectual, affiliated with a major research institution to push your Islamic agenda. Whether you agree with me or you disagree with me, the Muslim community needs to have this discussion. Do you want to be passive members of society or active members? I would urge you to be active, to have a voice, and to make your voice heard.

So, in the name of Allah, I encourage you all to become meaningful members of society, to contribute to the socio-political process and to contribute to the American community. As Almighty Allah says,

“Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: They are the ones to attain felicity” (3:104).

Verily,

“Is there any Reward for good other than good?” (55:60).

• 1. This article was originally delivered as a speech on Saturday, October 14th, 2006, at the Islamic Center of the Quad Cities, in Moline, Illinois, and appears in print for the first time.