Hamza Yusuf, an American Islamic scholar has reportedly come under fire in the Muslim community in the US and Canada following his statements at the Reviving the Islamic (RIS) Spirit conference in Toronto (December 24-27, 2016) about black on black crime.
But it is his statements on racism and antisemitism within the Muslim community that captured my attention.
“We should all be against any ideologies of superiority of one people over another people. It is completely antithetical proposition, but we have some of the worst racism in our own community… We have some of the worst racism in our own community. The anti-Jewish rhetoric, you know, here in the Islamic community is horrific.
“And one of the things about Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah who is an Arab Sheikh – I’ve never over 20 years I’ve known him, I’ve never heard him saying a bad word about Jewish people ever, and yet I’ve heard in our community so many blatant remarks [about Jews].
“Also, do you know what it is like to be a Pakistani in a lot of Gulf states or in India or from Kerala even worse. Do you know? Talk about people, talk about white privilege, what about Arab privilege over non-Arabs in the Middle East? I mean, I just feel like we have so little moral capital while pointing our finger at other people and it actually makes me a little sick to my stomach when I see all these people rising up about this anti, you know, anti this kind of white privilege and all these things and it’s like our community is rife with these things [racism] and our religion is so profound… [Question: How do you deal with that in our community?] by practicing Islam, that would be a good start.”
These are welcome, honest statements but I won’t be getting too carried away – while Yusuf seems consistent in his warnings against hating Jews, he thinks it is open season on “Zionists”, positing you can separate out Zionism from Judaism (you can’t)
