I was honored to give an invocation this morning at a national antiracism/anti-oppression conference hosted by Ct State Community College and CHRO. For more information on the conference please visit:
https://www.theprivilegeinstitute.com/
When the believers saw pharaoh and his army closing in on them from behind and the sea was right before them, fear and panic set in and they said
إنا لمدركون
Surly we are caught
But Moses peace be upon him said
كلا
absolutely not
إن معي ربي سيهدين
my lord is with me and He shall guide me
And guidance came
فأوحينا إلى موسى
We inspired to Moses
أن أضرب بعصاك البحر
strike the sea with your staff
And one can’t help but wonder, what would that do?
When the excruciating pains of labor drove Mary peace be upon her to a palm tree and as she rested against its trunk, fear, panic, worry, anxiety piled on top of the pain and she said
يا ليتني مت قبل هذا وكنت نسيا منسيا
oh how I wish I was long dead before this and was forgotten into oblivion
She needed comfort and reassurance and God’s comfort came
وهزي إليك بجذع النخلة
and shake the trunk of the palm tree towards you
And again one wonders, what would that do!?
Well when Moses struck the sea with his staff
فانفلق فكان كل فرق كالطود العظيم
the sea parted and each part was like a towering mountain and he and the believers escaped while pharaoh and his army were crushed by the same sea
When Mary shook the trunk of the palm tree towards her
تساقط عليك رطبا هنيا
fresh, plum, dates fall upon you
فكلي واشربي وقري عينا
so eat, drink and be content
It’s as if God is telling us that we need not worry about the result, what we need to do is act. No matter how overwhelming the forces of evil may seem, no matter how anxious, worried or afraid we may be, no matter how little we may think our action is we trust in God and act
And so when faced with systems of oppression that treat the indigenous people of a land as sub human, military industrial complexes that favor profit over human life, systems that determine your with based on skin color, systems that keep the rich richer and crush the poor, vulnerable and underserved we heed what prophet Mohamed said
أعظم الجهاد كلمة حق عند سلطان جائر
The greatest of جهاد the greatest if struggle is a truthful word before a tyrannical ruler
And instead of worrying about what a word would do, we say اللهم أرنا الحق حقا وارزقنا
اتباعه وارنا الباطل باطلا وارزقنا اجتنابه
O Allah, oh God, show us the timer as truth and grant us the ability to follow it and show us the falsehood as falsehood and grant us the ability to avoid it
In the name of God the most gracious the most merciful we pray
Amen
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