My Nasiha on the Joint Muslim Statement on Orlando

Please don’t sign this or reconsider if you have already. EDIT- I say this with all due respect and love for our teachers and leaders. You can express condolences without committing yourself to highly problematic statements about liberty, the “cherished political right” to pursue life as one sees fit, etc. In other words, the statement is by and large fine except for the powder keg that is the sentences in the following: “In America, individuals are at liberty to pursue happiness as each sees fit; it is our cherished political right. Those of us who live in this country, irrespective of our beliefs, must respect the equality of all Americans under the laws of the land.”

Signing onto this will come back to haunt you when you are inevitably asked about “gay imams,” being inclusive of gay Muslim activists, non-discriminatory hiring practices at our Islamic schools and masajid, the “anti-gay,” sharia-based legal regimes across the Muslim world, the necessity for gay rights NGOs to set up shop in Muslim countries to spread the “cherished political right” American Muslims enjoy, etc., etc. These questions are all coming, and if people are already waxing poetic about life, liberty, happiness, equality, I can’t imagine anyone’s prepared to address these questions without looking unprincipled, i.e., “When the Muslim community was facing the heat in the aftermath of the shooting, you make beautiful statements about inclusivity and tolerance, but clearly you don’t believe in any of that and you’re not willing to put your money where your mouth is.”

Are we not seeing how Christians groups have been eviscerated over the past few years due to this issue? Is this where we’re headed? And a big part of the Christians’ problem is that they haven’t been able to reconcile these notions of liberty/equality and homosexuality and transgenderism. We are setting ourselves up for the same fate.

EDIT: Should also mention that I highly respect a number of the signatories and they are my teachers, and I love them for the sake of Allah. This is just my nasiha.

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