Hardship & Joy: Muslim Organizing in North Carolina
An Interview with Khalilah Sabra, Director, MAS Freedom Foundation, North Carolina
Interviewed By Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Isabell Moore & Manju Rajendran
Islam means peace. Khalilah Sabra speaks this literally, with her hands, with her deep breaths and with her passion. Islam means peace, but we are living in a moment when a violently anti-Islamic (in every sense of the word) administration is demonizing Muslim practice and dehumanizing Muslim practitioners in order to justify perpetual war. Islam means peace, but Muslim activists in the United States are finding themselves on the front lines of a struggle to be seen and heard despite the hateful Islamophobic fear being sold on every corner as faith in a state of war.
But Muslim activists in the United States are responding, from the work of MAS Freedom Foundation to nurture Muslim activists, to the increased asylum work of Al-Fatiha, a Muslim LGBTQI advocacy organization, to the DRUMbeats documentary about the impact the War of Terror has had on Muslims by the working class youth members of Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), to the brave solidarity with racist state terror against African Americans articulated on No Snow Here, notes of an Arab American feminist (www.nosnowhere.wordpress.com) to the collective Iftar dinner gatherings bridging Durham, North Carolina’s five distinct Muslim communities this past Ramadan, a variety of activists and organizers are refusing to abandon Islam to the slander of the political moment, and are insisting on Islam as a resource towards a necessary peace.
Islam means peace. And peace is hard to find in a state of global war. The voices of Muslim activists and organizers are silenced by the media campaign to make Islam mean terror for practitioners and would-be enemies of the Islamic faith. But Islam means peace and the faithful keep speaking. Because we continue to believe in the possibility of peace, because we refuse the lie of the dehumanization of Muslims, we find it crucial to center the voices of Muslim activists and organizers. Please read Khalilah’s insights as part of a multitude of varied approaches to peace, to Islam, to the justice we need to believe in this day. (And please scroll down to see some quotes from other muslim organizers.)
Khalilah Sabra is a Muslim American organizer with the North Carolina chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS) Freedom Foundation. She has a long track record of coalition building and creative, determined organizing in and outside of the masjids (mosques). In the following excerpts from a longer interview, she discusses her organizing experiences and relationship to spirituality and organizing.
On Spirituality and Activism
Well, I became Muslim in high school. In a way, I was just searching and I met some Muslims in the mall and they convinced me to come to the mosque and I did. I felt very comfortable with the ideology and I converted. Through the process of converting and after my conversion, I came into contact with really, really, good, knowledgeable Muslims. At that time, there were a lot of Muslims students coming here to be educated and eventually they would return home, but they were activists in their own right. They came from diverse backgrounds, they came from oppressed governments, but these were the kind of people that spoke out. I began to learn about the situation of the Occupied Territories [of Palestine] and it kind of nurtured a sense of wanting to do something to create change and then I was able to go to Afghanistan and work in a refugee camp. I think it’s been kind of a nurturing and there was a time where I kind of gave up on a lot. Nothing’s changing, nothing’s going to happen. But then if you give up, then the other side wins. I was surprised when I came to North Carolina. I saw so much activism. No one in California would believe it.
On Racial Profiling
As far as the racial profiling, more people are getting stopped because of their ethnicity. It’s something that we need to deal with. Especially in North Carolina, now that most of the sheriff departments are now deputized as ICE Homeland Security agents, and they can literally stop someone for going through a stop sign and then the next thing they know, they’re locked up being forced to sign voluntary deportation orders and that’s not right, with no counsel, no family notification of where they are or how long they’re going to be there. The Supreme Court have become the puppets of George Bush, he holds them on a string, and they’re not a decisive factor in American rights. They’re allowing the abuse to continue, whether it’s here or Guantanamo Bay. So I think we’re at a crossroads here, but the only way to get beyond it constructively is for all of us to put our resources together and stage a mass movement that guarantees our rights, our rights as human beings and as citizens.
On Islamophobia, Muslim Identity and the Left
As soon as anyone hears the term “Islamicist,” they become intimidated, bothered. Well, if you look at what an Islamicist is, Islam means peace and basically the majority of Muslims are peaceful people that are trying to coexist in this society. We have to be activists, we have to involve ourselves in dialogue, we have to communicate to people what Islam really is. And Islam never said, according to the Qu’ran and the Practice of the Prophet, Muslims were never allowed to sideline themselves, but to go amongst the people. And not attempt to convert the people, but to educate the people about our value system. We were remiss. We were kind of in a hibernation mode in the masjids or in the mosques [before September 11th], and that was wrong.
I think that [non-Muslims on the Left] welcome Muslims, but they still have a lot to learn about Muslim ideology and the thought processes and about the religious customs, but I think that they’re willing to give it a good go, that their sincerity is authentic.
I think sometimes because as Americans, we are sensitive toward those soldiers that go to war, that there is a tendency with some organizations to ignore the other victims of the war, like the situation with the Iraqis. Americans are so conditioned, they develop an emotional immunity to what’s going on with the people with regard to the rapes, with regard to what looks like murder, people just shot in the head.
On Organizing Against Treatment of Muslim Women at the DMV
My job is with the Freedom Foundation [of the Muslim American Society (MAS)]. One of the things I’ve worked on was that when Muslim women went the DMV, they were systematically asked to either pull their scarves back or to have a third party come in and sign that they’re wearing this for religious reasons, as if it’s not obvious. She couldn’t even sign her own affidavit. She had to have someone else to come in with her. So basically if she didn’t bring someone with her, she was not allowed to get her driver’s license. The Sikhs also appreciated the effort and other people that wear religious headdresses. They did change the policy and now it’s state law in North Carolina that they can’t do that and that just her face can be shown and that she doesn’t have to have a third-party witness for her that it’s a matter of religion.
On Children, Schools and Spirituality
Even though according to the Constitution, you have the right to pray, some of the schools were not open to allowing the children to be involved in any spiritual practices during lunch. We thought that they should be accommodated whether they’re Muslim, whether they’re Jews, whether they’re Christians, whether they’re Transcendental Meditators. If they want to do this and it’s their free time, why shouldn’t they be allowed to do it? I think this society has gone way too far away from spiritual reflection and our children and the society are suffering because of it. If they have no spiritual basis, it’s hard to develop a humanitarian basis. Schools should actually be encouraging this behavior. It makes it more functional for the students to get along and for the teachers to be able to go about their job as teaching instead of spending part of their time policing students. They weren’t trained to police students; they were put there to teach.
On Organizing Within the Masjid (Mosque)
We’ve had lots of ACLU presentations against racial profiling and now we’re embarking on the taser project. We’re inviting Rachel Corrie’s family to come to the masjid to give a talk so that there’s that human exchange. She was there [in Palestine] fighting on behalf of people that she didn’t have to be there. She made a choice to fight for freedom and she lost her life in doing so and I think that it would be cruel to not recognize her sacrifice and not recognize the sacrifice of her family. I think this type of interaction will be productive. We’re showing films like Occupation 101 and we’re actually planning the spring concert, a Canadian group that sings Palestinian songs about occupation. We’re planning on lots of programs in the mosques.
On Spirituality and Sustainability
I learned a long time ago that you have to depend on a higher power giving you that spiritual rejuvenation. If you depend on people, you might get let down. You have to look at the cause, instead of the people participating in the cause. I have to judge Islam by the Book, by the Qu’ran, instead of by the behavior of people, because if you do that, you subject yourself to being let down. Like for example, when Osama bin Laden surfaced again, I knew that that would create a problem for Muslims. We wanted him to just disappear because his role is to divide Muslims from other people and to label people as enemies and we’re fighting against that; that goes against all our work.
So sometimes that can be disheartening and especially when you go outside in the scarf and people will say things or people will spit or people will holler or something like that. You say, “Oh wow, I’m going to move.” But then you say, “It’s easy to walk away. But if we all walk away, there’s nobody left to take a stand.” And so what I do is I just go home, get over my anger and my grief, and then we go back to the job of doing what we have to do and we are constantly in pursuit of people, recruiting people to work in Freedom Foundation.
In the past few months, I’ve gone back to just meditating, just quietly meditating, reminding myself, saying spiritual words, reciting the Qu’ran, reminding myself of all the good people that I’ve come into contact with and seeing that there isn’t just hardship in this work, but there’s joy too because you really meet people that you would have never expected to meet and you hear ideas you would have never expected would come from the mouths of people that think just like you, that are just like you, and want the same goals.
As a Muslim I believe that Humans were put on earth to do three main things: 1. Praise the Creator, 2. Take care of the earth, 3. Take care of one another. All of my work as a social justice connector and movement historian has been informed by that basic framework, I care deeply about how we negotiate our relationship with the planet, how we treat one another regardless of differing belief and decision making systems. It all comes down to one thing: do we see all of Creation as irrevocably connected? If so, harm done to one of us, or our planet, is harm done to all. I firmly believe it is my faith that calls me to work hard to rid society of all forms of oppression and to create a world where each soul can fulfill its ultimate purpose.”
- Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, New York City
“The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him) said: “The best definition of piety (taqwa) is given in God’s words: “Allah commands justice, and doing of good (ihsan)… ” (Qur’an: 16:90). There are hundreds and thousands of such traditions in the words of the Prophet, and in the Qur’an that clarify that the active struggle for justice is intrinsic to Islam. As such, whatever social justice work I may be involved in helps to harmonize my inner faith (iman) with how I live in the world (dunya).”
- Altaf Bhimji, Oakland
“As a Muslim, my activism and social justice work stem from an understanding that throughout history, Allah (God) has always expressed His interest in human affairs by intervening on behalf of the most oppressed of the society, the despised and the rejected, the wretched of the Earth. Allah is where they are. And if we want to be with Him, we must be with them, working and struggling on their behalf.”Throughout the Qur’an, we are told, “among you there should be a party who invite to good and enjoin the right and forbid the wrong.” As Muslims we are thus commanded to stand up for what is right and just, and use every faculty available to us to fight what is wrong and unjust.
“There is a Hadith (saying) of the Prophet Muhammad that advises us where ever we find evil, to stop it with our hands. And if we cannot stop it with our hands, then we are to speak out against it with our mouths. And if we cannot do either of those, we should at least hate the evil in our hearts. As a Muslim, therefore, I understand my role as an activist as one who works to end injustice, one who speaks truth to power, and one who engages in knowledge production that will benefit the struggle of the oppressed.”-Zaheer Ali, New York City
“In the Name of Allah. From an Islamic perspective, the principle of Tauhid (Unity or Oneness of God) forms the foundation for a holistic and interconnected religio-socio-political worldview, whereby humans, as all other creations, are to be worshipers and servants only to the Creator. This principle is to be manifested not only in our relationship to God, but also in our relationships with each other, by which, any sort of social, economic or political structure that subjugates or exploits one group or class of people for another is unjust and contrary to principles of Tauhid. This necessitates the need for some form of a collective and socialized system that rejects capitalism for a system based on harmony and sustainability between people, other living beings and our environment.
However, Islam is not only a materialist philosophy, and in addition to material justice, also raises the question of spiritual justice and freedom – of spiritual refinement to free ourselves from our own subjugation to greed, anger, and other weaknesses. As a Muslim living in the heart of the Empire (or in the house of the modern day Pharaoh), my work and obligation to organize in our communities is informed by these understandings and the lived realities of oppressed peoples throughout the world.”
-Fahd Ahmed, New York
