{"id":1508,"date":"2014-05-29T15:12:50","date_gmt":"2014-05-29T15:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/?p=1508"},"modified":"2014-05-29T15:47:30","modified_gmt":"2014-05-29T15:47:30","slug":"advice-from-shaykh-abdallah-bin-bayyah-to-the-muslim-community-of-america-four-obstacles-that-muslims-face-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/advice-from-shaykh-abdallah-bin-bayyah-to-the-muslim-community-of-america-four-obstacles-that-muslims-face-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice from shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah to the Muslim community of America: Four obstacles that Muslims face in America"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Four<\/a>

Four obstacles that Muslims face in America<\/p><\/div>\n

Shaykh\u00a0Abdallah\u00a0Bin\u00a0Bayyah\u00a0advised\u00a0Muslims in the West to have a good intention as a community and to act with intelligence and reason in order to overcome\u00a0four\u00a0challenges that he believes\u00a0the\u00a0Muslim minorities in the West need to overcome in order to be creative and productive communities.\u00a0Our difficulty is that even though Islam unites us, we are separated by our various cultural backgrounds.\u00a0In order to protect ourselves from making mistakes, we have to be aware of the following\u00a0four\u00a0obstacles:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1)\u00a0Cultural baggage\u00a0from previous backgrounds<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Many\u00a0Muslims come\u00a0to the West\u00a0from different countries and bring along with them here to the West the\u00a0mentalities associated with those various countries.\u00a0This\u00a0often\u00a0causes cultural clashes amongst the Muslims, as we cannot see eye to eye if we have different mentalities based on our different cultural backgrounds.\u00a0To overcome this, we must put forth as our goal the good of our community\u00a0here\u00a0above all other considerations and come together in wanting to do\u00a0good\u00a0for God\u2019s creation. This requires that we\u00a0squelch our egos\u00a0in order\u00a0to overcome those elements that separate us.\u00a0Our\u00a0primary concerns\u00a0have\u00a0to be local since we are here, or else a creative minority\u00a0will not be able to emerge in order\u00a0to provide the necessary leadership for the Muslim community here.\u00a0It is necessary\u00a0for us\u00a0to understand the culture and mentality of the West and view issues through that lens\u00a0without compromising our Islamic values.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2) Muslims are\u00a0relatively\u00a0new to the West.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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,\u00a0many Westerners have a negative association with Muslims due to historical relations between the West and Muslim nations.\u00a0We\u00a0have 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.\u00a0Because 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,\u00a0our conditions will improve.\u00a0We need to add value to the society we live in and be\u00a0productive and beneficial citizens.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3) Events taking place in\u00a0the Muslim world\u00a0overseas affect us here.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many of the\u00a0political\u00a0events\u00a0overseas\u00a0as well as those associated with individuals\u00a0overseas\u00a0reflect negatively\u00a0on our communities here in the West.\u00a0Our communities have to rise above this with intelligence, through\u00a0legal means and, mostimportantly,\u00a0by\u00a0turning\u00a0to our\u00a0faith\u00a0to understand those events.\u00a0The philosophical underpinnings \u2013 the foundations \u2013\u00a0of our religion are four: wisdom, justice,\u00a0commonweal benefit, and mercy.\u00a0We 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.\u00a0We need to\u00a0stop\u00a0being reactionary\u00a0and to\u00a0become\u00a0agents of change instead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4) Balance\u00a0in our approach to society\u00a0is a challenge.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every society is challenged. Muslims must not\u00a0go to the extremes of\u00a0assimilation 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\u00a0also engaging\u00a0efficiently 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.\u00a0An example of someone who did this isAlexander the Great.\u00a0Before\u00a0crossing the Himalayas, he recognized that\u00a0crossing the mountains\u00a0was an obstacle\u00a0and that itneeded a solution. He\u00a0realized\u00a0that the elephant would be the most suitable animal to cross this terrain;\u00a0hence,\u00a0the elephant was his solution.\u00a0We share universals\u00a0with 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/p>\n

We have to overcome obstacles with creative minorities,\u00a0which involve\u00a0not just scholars or religious leaders, but\u00a0alsopeople with\u00a0high levels\u00a0of expertise and skills from various\u00a0backgrounds. It is this very creative minority that will help the Muslim community to overcome obstacles by becoming productive, integrated,\u00a0and thriving communities in the West.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shaykh\u00a0Abdallah\u00a0Bin\u00a0Bayyah\u00a0advised\u00a0Muslims in the West to have a good intention as a community and to act with intelligence and reason in order to overcome\u00a0four\u00a0challenges that he believes\u00a0the\u00a0Muslim minorities in the West need to overcome in order to be creative and productive communities.\u00a0Our difficulty is that even though Islam unites us, we are separated by our various […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[222],"class_list":["post-1508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-islamic-insights","tag-advice-from-shaykh-abdallah-bin-bayyah-to-the-muslim-community-of-america-four-obstacles-that-muslims-face-in-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1508"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1522,"href":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508\/revisions\/1522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/binbayyah.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}