Beyond the polling booth

Salina Khan

Muharram 17, 1434 2012-12-01

News & Analysis

by Salina Khan (News & Analysis, Crescent International Vol. 41, No. 10, Muharram, 1434)

‘Get the vote out,’ was a common refrain heard by Muslims from the minbar prior to the November 6 elections. Salina Khan asks whether the same Imams would be just as eager to link up with people standing for justice and peace.

Now that the US presidential elections are over, will Muslim political activism go back into hibernation? Most masjids across America usually won’'t touch political issues with a ten-foot pole but many forayed onto the political scene this fall through sophisticated get-out-the-Muslim-vote campaigns that included mass emails, on-site registration drives and even specialized Friday sermons that urged people to “enjoin good and forbid evil” by casting a vote.

“We Muslims in America are blessed to be part of a vibrant and open democracy that actively seeks our participation,” gushed one email I received from a local masjid on Election Day. “Voting is our duty both as Americans and Muslims. But more importantly, it’s our right.”

Indeed, our leaders have gone gangbusters this year urging us to make use of our 15th Amendment constitutional right to vote (Huffington Post ran a piece called “Tennessee Muslims Instrumental in Getting the Vote Out” on 11-7-2012).

But they shouldn’t put away their political topees just yet. To truly contribute to creating a more just and harmonious society in America, our leaders need to focus their time, energies and money on methods of peaceful political participation that lifts oppression for all, not being simply satisfied with changing the face of corrupt leadership. For starters, our leaders need to wake up and start exercising the 1st Amendment rights they have long neglected in their stated struggle “to help solve the problems in the world around us.”

Freedom of speech

Muslim leaders have the opportunity to speak out against the injustices being committed by our corporate-controlled government at home (poverty, hunger and homelessness) and abroad (globalization, wars, drone attacks) during weekly sermons, but mum’s the word on these topics during most Friday afternoon congregational prayers.

“The concept of separation of church and state meant that the state was to keep out of the affairs of the church, not that the church was supposed to be silent about [wrong] things of the state,” according to Reverend Rob Rotola of Witchita, Kansas, who took in October in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, a movement to get religious leaders to talk about politics from the pulpit.

Freedom of Assembly

None of the masjids in our area supported the Occupy Movement, demonstrated against the video ridiculing Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) or participated in rallies on Quds (Jerusalem) Day, when Muslims, Christians, Jews and others around the world gather on the last Friday of Ramadan in support of the oppressed in Palestine and other places. Our leaders need to get a clue from one local church that recently took up the Palestinian cause — it is considering organizing a Quds Day demonstration next year.

Freedom of press

With media outlets from all over the world swarming our town and paparazzing our leaders for interviews time and again ever since controversy about a new masjid erupted two years ago, our leaders have missed ample opportunities to discuss how local Islamophobia ties in with the War on Terror. They need to seize them now.

Truth is, the majority of Muslim leaders today are immigrants and newcomers to this country’s political arena with little knowledge about the history of people’s struggle for justice in America. To get on the fast track to political action that works, they need to join hands with the indigenous Muslims of African descent who are working in their oppressed communities and are familiar with the system.

According to African-American Imam Abdul Alim Musa of Masjid al-Islam, Muslim leaders in America are making the mistake of using Civil Rights era (1960s) tactics to combat the global problems of injustice in the 21st century. “The struggle today is bigger than that,” Imam Musa says. “We have to rise to the occasion.”

But that requires the willingness to give up the “American Dream” of attaining comfort and riches for oneself and struggling instead to create a more just world for the masses as did Khadijah, the wife of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and one of the four perfect women of all times.

This “Princess of Arabia” came to the Prophet (pbuh) with real estate, pasture lands, herds of camels and horses, flocks of goats and sheep, priceless heirlooms, precious metals and stones, and masses of gold and silver coins. But she spent it all on others, enduring intense hunger, thirst, cold and heat in her final years of struggle against corruption and oppression.

According to African-American Imam Abdul Alim Musa of Masjid al-Islam, Muslim leaders in America are making the mistake of using Civil Rights era (1960s) tactics to combat the global problems of injustice in the 21st century. “The struggle today is bigger than that,” Imam Musa says. “We have to rise to the occasion.”

Salina Khan runs a blog at: http://theperfectionistas.blogspot.ca/