Today’s sermon was given at the Islamic Association of Greater Detroit in Rochester Hill, Michigan.
The rise in Islamophobia and the Park 51 community center project was mentioned in the second portion.
Click here to listen.
DawudWalid
Dawud Walid is currently the Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), which is a chapter of America's largest advocacy and civil liberties organization for American Muslims and is a member of the Michigan Muslim Community Council (MMCC) Imams Committee. Walid has been interviewed and quoted in approximately 150 media outlets ranging from the New York Times, Wall St Journal, National Public Radio, CNN, BBC, FOX News and Al-Jazeera. Furthermore, Walid was a political blogger for the Detroit News from January 2014 to January 2016, has had essays published in the 2012 book All-American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim, the 2014 book Qur'an in Conversation and was quoted as an expert in 13 additional books and academic dissertations. He was also a featured character in the 2013 HBO documentary "The Education of Mohammad Hussein." Walid has lectured at over 50 institutions of higher learning about Islam, interfaith dialogue and social justice including at Harvard University, DePaul University and the University of the Virgin Islands - St. Thomas and St. Croix campuses as well as spoken at the 2008 and 2011 Congressional Black Caucus Conventions alongside prominent speakers such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Congressman Keith Ellison. In 2008, Walid delivered the closing benediction at the historic 52nd Michigan Electoral College in the Michigan State Senate chambers and gave the Baccalaureate speech for graduates of the prestigious Cranbrook-Kingswood Academy located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Walid was also a featured speaker at the 2009 and 2010 Malian Peace and Tolerance Conferences at the University of Bamako in Mali, West Africa. He has also given testimony at hearings and briefings in front of Michigan state legislators and U.S. congressional representatives, including speaking before members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington, D.C. Walid has studied under qualified scholars the disciplines of Arabic grammar and morphology, foundations of Islamic jurisprudence, sciences of the exegesis of the Qur’an, and Islamic history during the era of Prophet Muhammad through the governments of the first 5 caliphs. He previously served as an imam at Masjid Wali Muhammad in Detroit and the Bosnian American Islamic Center in Hamtramck, Michigan, and continues to deliver sermons and lectures at Islamic centers across the United States and Canada. Walid was a 2011 - 2012 fellow of the University of Southern California (USC) American Muslim Civil Leadership Institute (AMCLI) and a 2014 - 2015 fellow of the Wayne State Law School Detroit Action Equity Lab (DEAL). Walid served in the United States Navy under honorable conditions earning two United States Navy & Marine Corp Achievement medals while deployed abroad. He has also received awards of recognition from the city councils of Detroit and Hamtramck and from the Mayor of Lansing as well as a number of other religious and community organizations.
When the leader of the sermon says in the audio you linked to that one day the grandchildren of the opponents of the mosque will be Muslims, that does not impress upon me good will or the desire for inter-faith dialog on the part of the mosque supporters.
It tells me that the desire of the mosque supporters is to convert non-Muslims to Islam.
Interesting. Now I thought the point was that if one relies on God in all of our affairs, God has the power to touch the hearts of even the very people who spew hatred and anger at you – so much so that you may find them praying along behind you/alongside you.
So that you understand: in Islam the congregation prays in rows “behind” the prayer leader, hence the phrase: “praying behind us”.
So it would seem that your issue is with both the semantics, and perhaps not knowing enough about the religion you are commenting on. I encourage you to learn more, from credible sources, so that you can have a better informed position.
The sermon mentioned “may” not will.
Now, the sermon also mentioned how some White bigots who were against de-segregation and inter-racial marriages now have grandchildren who are inter=racial that see a Black president of America on television.
Within the context of the sermon, you know goodness well what the point was. When a group of people fight something based upon hatred, there are strange ways in which their hatred manifests itself in unlikely ways that they won’t like.
And, one can be an interfaith promoter and still welcome new persons to their faith. Do interfaith activists who are Baptists or Quakers turn away people if they come to learn about their denominations and choose to accept?!
Come on;, get for real, please!
As Salaamu Alaikum Bro Dawud,
Thank you for this. It’s so timely. I was studying earlier the battles of Badr and Uhud and concluding the reasons for the different outcomes were obvious. In one the believers put their totally reliance in Allah and in the other they doubted.
The reminder of Ta’if was helpful. We must remember faithful constancy during times of hardship and adversity. Surely those before us have suffered similar or worse.