Four obstacles that Muslims face in America

Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah advised Muslims in the West to have a good intention as a community and to act with intelligence and reason in order to overcome four challenges that he believes the Muslim minorities in the West need to overcome in order to be creative and productive communities. Our difficulty is that even though Islam unites us, we are separated by our various cultural backgrounds. In order to protect ourselves from making mistakes, we have to be aware of the following four obstacles:

1) Cultural baggage from previous backgrounds.

Many Muslims come to the West from different countries and bring along with them here to the West the mentalities associated with those various countries. This often causes cultural clashes amongst the Muslims, as we cannot see eye to eye if we have different mentalities based on our different cultural backgrounds. To overcome this, we must put forth as our goal the good of our community here above all other considerations and come together in wanting to do good for God’s creation. This requires that we squelch our egos in order to overcome those elements that separate us. Our primary concerns have to be local since we are here, or else a creative minority will not be able to emerge in order to provide the necessary leadership for the Muslim community here. It is necessary for us to understand the culture and mentality of the West and view issues through that lens without compromising our Islamic values.

2) Muslims are relatively new to the West.

Many Westerners are still not familiar with Muslims, so it is quite natural for them to fear Muslims, as people tend to have an aversion to that which is unknown or foreign to them. Furthermore, many Westerners have a negative association with Muslims due to historical relations between the West and Muslim nations. We have to remind others not to make sweeping generalizations and associate Muslims in the West with what they hear about happening with individuals in other cultures. For example, just because there are some mad cows in England, it would be false to assume that all cows everywhere are mad. Because of the preconceived notions so many Westerners have of Muslims, this makes it even more important for Muslims to be vigilant and to guard our reputation and to not cause any disruptions in civil society. Muslims should contribute to the commonweal, adding value to our society here and be viewed as an asset to society. If we rectifyourselves and our relationships with others, our conditions will improve. We need to add value to the society we live in and be productive and beneficial citizens.

3) Events taking place in the Muslim world overseas affect us here.

Many of the political events overseas as well as those associated with individuals overseas reflect negatively on our communities here in the West. Our communities have to rise above this with intelligence, through legal means and, mostimportantly, by turning to our faith to understand those events. The philosophical underpinnings – the foundations – of our religion are four: wisdom, justice, commonweal benefit, and mercy. We must learn how to be pillars of our own faith in our own souls and implement these values in ourselves by being wise, just, beneficial, and merciful to others, to animals, and to our environment. We need to stop being reactionary and to become agents of change instead.

4) Balance in our approach to society is a challenge.

Every society is challenged. Muslims must not go to the extremes of assimilation or isolation, as people lose their way when adopting these methods. The preferred route is that of integration, where we retain our personal identity as Muslimswhile also engaging efficiently with the society at large around us. We need to overcome obstacles with solutions, so it is necessary to be able to identity the obstacles and to offer good solutions. An example of someone who did this isAlexander the Great. Before crossing the Himalayas, he recognized that crossing the mountains was an obstacle and that itneeded a solution. He realized that the elephant would be the most suitable animal to cross this terrain; hence, the elephant was his solution. We share universals with the dominant community. And there are specifics we have that are not shared. We have to balance these two so that we engage in our society in which we live without losing our specific identity.

Conclusion:

We have to overcome obstacles with creative minorities, which involve not just scholars or religious leaders, but alsopeople with high levels of expertise and skills from various backgrounds. It is this very creative minority that will help the Muslim community to overcome obstacles by becoming productive, integrated, and thriving communities in the West.