Br. Arthur L. Farahkhan

Br. Arthur had once heard his great grandfather, who lived to be 111 years old, mention the events of May 31 and June 1 of 1921. He knew that there was a big scare, or massacre, that his great grandfather and other elders were trying to conceal. It wasn’t until 1990 when he learned the full story. During a dinner banquet organized by the Tulsa Muslim American Community, one of the first Muslim organizations in Oklahoma, he met Mabel Little, a successful businesswoman who had lived through the events. Ms. Little had written a book entitled “Fire on Mount Zion” and shared all of what she knew with Br. Arthur. “The Fire on Mount Zion” ignited Br. Arthur’s lantern and he became the next generation’s resident authority on the subject.

As both a Muslim Imam and a Community Activist he attended many civic activities including interfaith events and conferences. In 1989 he represented Imam W.D. Mohammad in an interfaith dialogue conference in Toronto Canada. His talents developed from there in many different directions: he trained clinic staff to teach homeless people about the health benefits for homeless citizens, continues to counsel troubled youth and gang members through conflict resolution and rehabilitation, and even wrote and recorded a song about the massacre on Black Wall Street.

Br. Arthur has built a reputation both on the streets and in the courts as an honest straight shooter who genuinely cares about the people of his city. He is, so far as we know, the only Muslim nationwide who gathers guns from gang members on the street and turns them into the police department.

Br. Arthur’s latest project is a 3 million dollar Halal meat market and slaughterhouse in Oklahoma – a holistic, organic operation that will contract ranchers to raise cattle, sheep, goats and chicken on their natural diet without any hormones or antibiotics. The meat will be slaughtered Islamically (Zabeha) and the animals raised in healthy, Halal conditions. This enterprise, which will distribute meat nationally and internationally, has already received verbal approval from the city of Tulsa and the USDA. “We intend to provide a healthy, quality product. Hopefully our work will show Americans that Islam teaches wholesomeness and offer Muslims and others organic Halal meat.”

Br. Arthur’s dedication to the Muslim ummah and the community at large shines through everything he does. He is a living example of how dawah should be performed: just do good and care about people. During a meeting between Br. Arthur and Imam W.D. Mohammed, Imam Mohammed charged Br. Arthur with a special mission. “Allah gave you a gift for making friends, use that gift to serve the community and to improve the Muslim image in the outer community.” And that is what he has been doing ever since.

But just like the proverbial Phoenix, the American Islamic College is rising again – with new blood, renovated facilities and a new outlook.

To begin the dream of reopening, the executive management dug in and began rebuilding the institution they so believed in. Their first obstacle was the facilities themselves. Part of the building has been rented out to a French school and a French Montessori school. The parts of the school that had not been rented out , was left in disrepair for many years. Roofs were leaking, floors were damaged, equipment was ruined. The AIC spent $600,000 renovating the dorms alone.

Then once they had the facilities in shape, they turned to rebuilding the academic programs that would be the real heart of the university and getting the accreditation to put them in operation. The OIC, in cooperation with the executive management, appointed Chicagoans to the Board of Trustees. These prominent community members brought many years of academic experience to the AIC, and provided the accountability and accessibility that makes for a successful governing body.

Receiving accreditation for a university is not a one-step operation. The AIC has applied through the Illinois Board of Higher Education for Operating Authority. This authority, which will allow AIC to offer for-credit courses, is expected to come through in the next few months. Degree-granting authorization takes a bit longer and the application is in full swing. They hope to be offering for-credit courses in the fall of 2012 and degrees within the next 3 to 5 years. The first degree offerings will include Bachelors and Masters in Islamic Studies and Imam Training. Later degrees in economics, media, political science and other subjects will be available.

But the American Islamic College is not just sitting back waiting for all that to happen; in the meantime, they’re working to overcome the largest obstacle of all. Those who lived through the past three decades and witnessed the university’s first incarnation were left with little faith in the institution. The new management has a long-range plan for earning back their confidence, and it includes the college, the Islamic community in the US, and the community at large. They’ve begun with a free lecture series featuring prominent academics, politicians and writers. The series is open to the public and has had an enthusiastic response. interfaith activities are helping AIC renew its relationships with adherents of other faiths as well. An interfaith garden, an open arms attitude toward visitors and a Sounds of Faith program are among the projects that are revitalizing interfaith ties. In addition, the university has hosted two “Islam and Muslims in America” conferences that brought together Muslim scholars and national politicians.

While they are awaiting full accreditation, the university is also offering non-credit courses in subjects like Islamic studies, Arabic studies, Sufism, Classical Arabic Music and Turkish Ebru (The art pf paper marbling with oil paint on water). These courses are being attended by students from neighboring universities.

With a local Board of Trustees and Executive council in place, a curriculum developed by experienced professors, a league of qualified, prominent instructors and a beautiful facility with a sparkling new library, auditorium, lab, cafeteria and dorm, the American Islamic College will be ready to receive students from overseas, from Americans across the US and from Chicago itself. The university is ready to become the home of future Muslim scholars, economists, media professionals and politicians.

The AIC has regrouped, restructured and rebounded. “We have the preparation, the planning and the finances in place,” AIC spokesman said. “What we need now is du’a from all the community members. We need their support to become the first-rate institution we envision.”

Bilal ibn Rabah Al-Habashi, (the Ethiopian) is well-known as the African Muslim who called the early Muslims to prayer. But he was much more than that. In addition to lending his magnificent voice to the adhan and being a humble believer who was promised paradise, he was, in today’s terms, the Prophet’s personal administrative assistant. He was in charge of the Prophet’s schedule and finances, as well as his trusted companion on the battlefield.

Bilal was a slave in Mecca, the “property” of a man named Umayyah bin Khalaf. Bilal lived a difficult life during his pre-Islamic days because Bin Khalif was not a kind man by any means, although he kept Bilal strong and treated him as valuable property. When Bilal heard the message of Islam, he marveled at, among other things, its doctrines of human equality – slaves being treated kindly, fed well and not overworked. He saw his freedom in Islam and was among the first to become Muslim. Of course his master didn’t react kindly to his conversion.

As both punishment and incentive to renounce Islam, Bin Khalif frequently placed Bilal on the hot sand under the harsh desert sun with a bare chest and a boulder placed on his ribcage. Bin Khalif mocked him and asked, “Why doesn’t your God come and save you?” Bilal said nothing but “Ahad, Ahad,” God is one, God is one. This infuriated Bin Khalif not only because he was a polytheist, but because the implied belief in human dignity for all went against his treasured self-superiority.

The more Bilal insisted that God was one, the more torment was inflicted upon him, until one day Abu Bakr approached his master during one of these sessions and offered to buy him. Bin Khalaf knew by this point that there was no chance Bilal would renounce Islam, and the price that Abu Bakr offered was twice what a slave would normally bring. So he sold Bilal to Abu Bakr, who immediately freed him.

When the adhan was adopted as the call to prayer, Bilal’s habit was to stand on a rooftop every morning and call, “O Allah, I praise you and I ask your help for Qur’aish, that they may accept your religion.” Then he made the call to prayer. When the time for prayers arrived during the day, Rasoolullah (saws) would say, “Bilal, relieve us from it,” meaning “Bilal, relieve us from these worldly concerns by calling us to the tranquility of prayer.”

Tomb of Bilal in Damascus, Syria - Photo courtesy of "onemilegrads.blogspot.com"

When the Prophet died, Bilal was too grief-stricken to stay in Medinah. He ceased to make the adhan and traveled instead. In this way he came to be buried in Damascus.

Now, some 1400 years later, people in Syria and all over the world are standing up in the face of violence and oppression and demanding the human dignity bestowed upon them by Allah in the Qur’an – the same universal rights that inspired Bilal to stand up to Bin Khalaf in the middle of the Arabian desert so many years ago.

At Culturally Speaking our goal is to help create a world where everyone’s humanity is esteemed, everyone’s culture celebrated, everyone’s religion respected and everyone’s contribution valued. Just as Islam teaches.

Twenty years ago there was no such thing as an Apple home computer. Ten years ago there was no such thing as an iPod. Five years ago there was no such thing as an iPhone or an iPad. People wrote papers on electronic typewriters, listened to music on Walkmans, talked to each other on land lines, and played games on their TV sets. No one imagined that an interconnected family of devices could meet all those needs and more. Yet now, millions of people around the globe depend on Apple products for all their writing, listening, communication and entertainment needs. Apple created a line of products that made things easier, educated the public about them, and became the manufacturer of an indispensable part of 21st century living. And all this was the vision of two guys who saw what could be done to improve things and worked to do so without faltering.

Similarly, twenty years ago there were no Islamic textbooks in English. Ten years ago there were no graded series that provided teachers with continuity from one grade to the next. Five years ago there were no integrated curricula for Islamic and Arabic studies. Principals and teachers had to put their syllabi together piecemeal, pecking out random Islamic and Arabic resources from wherever they could find them. Yet now, IQRA provides a comprehensive curricula to Islamic schools around the world, who depend on their systematic approach to complete, integrated Islamic education. And all this began in the 1980s with the vision of Abdullah and Tasneema Ghazi, who have worked tirelessly over the past two decades to bring Islamic education to the same level as core subject curricula.

One of the successes of both companies is that they have developed almost universal brand recognition. Everyone in the computing world knows the apple with a bite missing, and it’s seen being used by actors in movies as well as students in coffee shops. Likewise, when anyone in the English–speaking Muslim world says they use IQRA’s curricula, everyone else in that world knows what they mean, and knows that what they mean is business – the business of giving Muslim children a quality education and teaching them to love Islam, not just know the rules.

Finally, Steve Jobs and the team at Apple are masters of the wow effect. When one opens an Apple product, sees all the sharp, colorful packaging, reads the easy-to-understand instruction manual, and plugs in their product to the miracle of having it work well straight away, they can’t help but marvel, “WOW!” Muslim educators are being treated to a similar wow effect by virtue of IQRA’s ever-growing inventory of inspiring Islamic studies books and textbooks, colorful new editions of classic books with stunning graphics, and now state-of-the-art ebook publishing so that schools and students can benefit from Islamic information in both hard-copy and electronic formats. Readers can now take their IQRA books with them to study and enjoy on their iPad, Mac, Kindle, Nook or PC.

The two companies with so much in common now provide the hardware and content that will allow Muslim students to study structured Islamic curricula wherever they are.

What is the future for an American Islam that is able to be seen as a full component part of the larger Muslim world? In other nations Muslims were able to be Malay and Muslim, Berber and Muslim, Indian and Muslim, or even Turkish and Muslim.

Muslims have been in the Unites States ever since Columbus “discovered” the New World and claimed it for the Crown of Spain. During the time of slavery, Muslims were here and some were able to preserve some of their culture for a short time. We see this in Selim the Algerine attending the first Continental Congress and in the Arabic writings of al-Hajj ‘Umar ibn Said and Bilali Muhammad and his selections from the Maliki fiqh text al-Risalah.

When slavery ended we had some false starts at an American Islamic Community. The most noteworthy, from the beginning of the 20^th century, was from a Missouri born convert – Muhammad Alexander Russell Webb – who founded an Islamic journal and press and wrote the first text for propagation of Islam in America.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire and World War I, large numbers of Arab, Turkish, Albanian, and Bosnian immigrants came to America. Most assimilated quickly and only further immigration kept the number of Muslims growing.

In the general American society many ills were occurring such as Racism, Sexism, etc. The abused saw Islam as a solution but the immigrant (for the most part) were not spreading the Message of Islam. Therefore, sects and schisms arose that spoke more of solving social ills than of practicing Islam.

In the late 1950s the Sunday School Movement was started in Toledo by the Bosnian scholar Shaykh Kamil Yusuf Avdich – a graduate of Sarajevo’s Gazi Husref Bey’s Madressa and Cairo’s al-Azhar. He also helped to start four Islamic journals in America and to open the Northbrook, Illinois Islamic Cultural Center (ICC) and the Bosnian American Cultural Home formerly on Halsted in Chicago from which the ICC grew.

From that humble center on Halsted, MCC (Chicago’s Muslim Cultural Center) and Mosque Foundation were given birth. Today we see the fruit of the pioneers, but we are still chasing after every identity but that as American Muslims.  The tragedy of September 11^th should have opened our eyes. As American Muslims we were harmed also. Our brothers and sisters were killed in the twin towers.

How to we achieve the American Muslim Identity?

Several scholars have provided answers such as Dr. Ismail Farooqi and the “Islamization of English” and many social scientists that are beginning to see Islam as an American phenomenon. However, like all cultures, we need an Islam that is a reflection of the culture we are in. Muslim societies have done this in the past by the use of prose, poetry, novels, and other literary devices. Food, clothing, and change in language are other ways this can be affected. It is hoped that we as American Muslims can find a path to develop as a cultured people.

“MOOZ-lum” The Movie playing in Kansas City.
Sat, May 14, 2011

Thank You for supporting our events

Celebrating Our Diversity

May 7, 2011

HateBusters, The Lawrence Alliance and Culturally Speaking will recognize key individuals and organizations for their contributions to the Lawrence Community. Honorees include:

Longtime Lawrence resident and new police chief Tariq Khatib for his contribution to the community

Kansas state senator David Haley for his representation of district 4 in Topeka

Southwest Junior High School for helping students become world class citizens

KU Global Partners for their service to K U’s international students and Southwest Jr. High

Haskell Indian Nation University for bringing Native Americans to prominence

Centro Hispano for their resource center for Latino youth and families

The Islamic Center of Lawrence for their services to the Muslim community since 1979

KU Audio Reader for bringing the written word to life for the visually impaired

The Greater Liberty Riders for riding from Olathe, KS to Lawrence to join our Human Family Reunion.

“Nobody is born hating,” said Ed Chasteen, founder of HateBusters and host of the first Human Family Reunion in 1976. Ed longs to become a World Class Person, able to go anyplace at any time and talk to anyone about anything and feel safe.

“HateBusters fights hate in all its forms, the Lawrence Alliance appreciates and empowers diversity, Culturally Speaking provides avenues for people of different cultures and faiths to create bonds of friendship, respect and understanding,” said Bassam Helwani, Executive Director of Culturally Speaking. “At the Human Family Reunion we will honor those whose daily activities promote these goals and values. “The award ceremony will include a performances and prayers representing American Indian, Hispanic and Islamic cultures, along with other activities.

For many years Muslims took our place in American society for granted. We went to work, raised our kids, and for the most part kept quietly to ourselves. Then 9-11 happened. Since we had been so quiet and unobtrusive, we had to spend a lot of time trying to convince people who we weren’t. We weren’t radicals, we weren’t violent, we weren’t members of sleeper cells. Now, a decade after the tragic events of that autumn morning, many forward-thinking American Muslims have dedicated themselves to showing people who we are. Through community involvement and the talents of Muslim musicians, writers, artists and filmmakers we are telling our own story.

This week, AMC Theater released in select city the documentary “Fordson: Fast, Faith and Football”. Fordson follows high school football players as they strive – physically and spiritually – through the rigors of preparing for their season while fasting. The struggles and triumphs of their Dearborn, MI community reflect those of many American Muslims who strive to hold onto their faith, their heritage and their American birthright. Uncompromisingly Muslim and unquestionably American, the young people of Fordson High School show the world that Muslims are a vibrant, down-to-earth part of the American mosaic.

Many community will have chance to be a part of sharing this side of our story with the community at large.

The Kansas City Film Festival hosted this unique documentary this year. After the showing filmmaker Rashid Ghazi told the audience of 200, all decked out in bright spring clothes including many headscarves, that his goal was to allow Americans a look through all the rhetoric to the human side of Arabs and Muslims. “When you watch the Olympics, everyone hates the Russians until they do a three-minute expose on one Russian weightlifter who lost his parents and has to walk 10 miles each day to work out, even in the harsh Siberian winter… Then everyone sees our common humanity and no longer considers that guy the enemy. No one was doing that for Arab Americans. I wanted to show the reality of this community’s dedication to its kids, it’s football program, its faith and its country.”

You can view the trailer and reviews of Fordson here.

Running Time:
99 minutes

Cast:
Bilal Abu-Omarah, Ail Baidoun, Hassan Houssaiky, Baquer Sayed, Fouad Zaban, Imad Fadlallah

First Time AMC Showing:
Kansas City, MO – FilmFest, Apr 2011

A Coalition of Kansas City area Muslims held a press conference on Wednesday March 16, 2011. Muslims, along with other members of the Kansas City faith community, have found Peter King’s recent Congressional Hearings on the Radicalization of Muslims in America disturbing and divisive. Dr. Robert Hill lent his support by hosting the the event at Community Christian Church, 4601 Main Street in Kansas City, where he is pastor. Following is the statement read at the press conference:

From Left to Right Top Row: Sheik Aasim Baheyadeen, Rev. Sam Mann Regional Chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Front Row: Dr. Robert Lee Hill, Pastor of Community Christian Church, Imam Yahya Furqan Director of Religious Affairs for Culturally Speaking, Imam Bilal Muhammed, Rabbi Alan L. Cohen, Director of Inter-religious Affairs, Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, and Dr. Vern Barnet of CRES. Photo courtesy of Br. Samuel Shareef.

With Allah’s help and assistance we greet you in Peace, thank you for your presence.

Thanks to the honorable faith leaders who have joined us and special thanks to Reverend Robert Lee Hill and the Community Christian Church Family for hosting this Press Conference.

Leaders in the Muslim Community feel it our obligation to protect our Muslim public living in this Great Land, the land we love and proudly call home from living under a cloud of suspicion. While we share an agreement with Congressman King that “ The responsibility of this committee is to protect America from a terrorist attack”, we register strong objection to the singling out of The Islamic American Community for and in these hearings. Muslims Americans live, work and attend schools in every part of America. Often but not always cultural dress easily identifies us as Muslims and perhaps so does an accent or maybe a certain demeanor. The singling out of Muslims as these Hearings in fact do, cast an undue cloud of suspicion over an entire religion. This singling out of Muslims in particular puts the ninety-nine percent of the law abiding Muslim American population in a position to live as a suspect group. We have children and grandchildren who do not even know what a terrorist is, they only want to experience the life and security that every child wants in every American home. The singling out of Muslims hurts our sense of shared freedom and shades our hopes for the treasured and promised pursuit of happiness protected by our Nation.

Our message to people who would try and promote radicalization among our youth is simple. To you we say, your position and thinking is weak so you seek to use mere children for front line fodder in your cause. Our family of culturally mixed American Muslims know that you lack a display of the fiber of true men. You show no indication of the high moral and ethical principles of our sacred text The Qur’an.

KNOW THAT WE WILL WORK AGAINST YOU.

To our neighbors, work mates and colleagues we want to get to know you, to work with you and celebrate our differences. We want you to know the core of who we are not suspect us or fear our religion, not to think of us as radical but rather defenders of fairness and human decency.

God’s peace be with you and Thank you.

Press conference comments of Imam Bilal Muhammed – March 16, 2011

Yusuf El-Sherif, Samuel Shareef, Ahmed El-Sherif, Imam Tadar Wazir, Imam Bilal, Imam Furqan. Photo courtesy of CRES. "I think the photo is interesting because the background shows the Country Club Plaza small scale version of the minaret that once was a part of the mosque in Seville, Spain. It was constructed shortly after the birth not far from Seville of Ibn Arabi, one of my favorite Muslim mystics, and I like to think he knew it before he left Andalusia." Vern Barnet

Dr. Vern Barnet with Muslim friends

All these events have been made possible by the addition of the new ISGKC Community Center.  This community center took not only the hard work of its builders, but also the dedication, sacrifice, vision and planning of the many who have contributed to the growth of the Islamic Center.

Here’s a photo essay tribute to all those whose contribution of money, time, effort and du’a have helped create an active and welcoming space for our members and the community at large.