Friday Prayers at Yusuf Mosque

Two days after the bombs went off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, a young Palestinian woman named Heba Abolaban took her 9-month-old daughter out for a walk in Malden, Massachusetts. She was accosted on her way by a fist-wielding man who screamed, “Fuck you! Fuck you, Muslims, you are terrorists!” Heba and her daughter escaped the attack unscathed. Her assailant has not yet been identified.

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Brothers and Sisters, the Muslims of Boston and America are offended. We are sickened by the massacre of sacred human life at the Boston Marathon. Once again, the religion of Islam has been publicly distorted in the worst example: the slaughter of innocents in the name of some kind of incomprehensible Jihadist rage! Yusuf Mosque, and along with it the entire Muslim community of Boston and throughout the United States, is outraged.

– Imam Ibrahin Rahim, Friday Prayers at Yusuf Mosque, 27 April 2013

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Shortly after this assault, I wrote a note via email to Ibrahim Rahim, who is Imam of the Yusuf Mosque in Brighton, my home. “Peace and love in this time of trial,” I wrote. A few days later, Imam Rahim wrote back: “Thank you for your support. We are grateful to have friends in the community such as yourself. We’re a proud religious institution here in Brighton and we are outraged by what has happened. Thank you for being a friend to Islam and the Mosque. I am attaching this past Friday’s Sermon Notes as a courtesy. They may assist you with regard to any discussions you are having.”

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And now most people want desperately to know how the Muslims feel. They desire to know this because these two men have been associated with Islam. We don’t know them as Muslims. They did not attend this Mosque, and they would never have been welcome here. We know them as they have been defined: two Russian and/or Chechen asylum seekers consumed by anger and hate.

– Imam Ibrahin Rahim, Friday Prayers at Yusuf Mosque, 27 April 2013

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In the immediate aftermath of the Boston bombing, regular Fox News commentator Erik Rush tweeted his hope that all Muslims would be killed. Responding to a Twitter user who asked if he was serious, Rush replied, “Yes, they’re evil. Let’s kill them all.” Some days later, Rush stated in his weekly column:

It is important that we know the extent to which many of our fellow citizens have been indoctrinated into this suicidal worldview. Despite the interpretations of my words and liberals’ tiresome claims that the right is prone to violence, we know that with very few exceptions, violence is the way of the left (as well as Islamists).

For the record, I still maintain that Islam is, by its nature, wholly incompatible with Western society. I analogize liberalism, which is promoting this dhimmitude, to Stage 3 cancer in America’s body politic. For the record: While killing people is definitely undesirable, that is what war tends to be about.

And we are at war — just study the history of Islam, or ask any Islamist.

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There is nothing in Islam that advocates violence against humanity as we have seen demonstrated in the Massacre of sacred human life at the Boston Marathon. There is nothing in Islam that will ever commend, compliment or praise Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. There is not one thing in Islam that these two men can point to and justify the murder of four people and the maiming and injury of nearly 300 others.

– Imam Ibrahin Rahim, Friday Prayers at Yusuf Mosque, 27 April 2013

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Democratic House Representative Keith Ellison has served his district and his country with distinction in the United States Congress. He is Muslim. Shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing, Fox News host Eric Bolling called for national racial profiling of Muslims, buttressing his argument by calling Rep. Ellison the “Muslim apologist in Congress.” Bolling pointedly observed that Ellison “raised his right hand and took the oath of office on the Quran,” before describing him as “dangerous.”

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Islam would prefer that eight-year-old Martin William Richard be alive today still holding his sign that reads, “No More Hurting People: Peace!” Today, the Muslim Community lifts its voices of prayer for Martin! And we pray for his entire family that has been ripped apart. Islam would prefer that Boston University Mathematics Graduate student Lu Lingzi was alive today conducting her research at the university. Islam would prefer that 29-year-old Krystle Campbell was alive today, inspiring people with her smile and her outgoing nature. Islam would prefer that MIT Officer Sean Collier was alive today protecting and serving the MIT campus.

– Imam Ibrahin Rahim, Friday Prayers at Yusuf Mosque, 27 April 2013

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Commissioner Barry West of Tennessee let it be known on Facebook how he thinks Americans should wink at Muslims: by sighting them down the barrel of a shotgun. When confronted about the violent nature of his Facebook post, Commissioner West stated, “I’m prejudiced against anyone who’s trying to tear down this country, Muslims, Mexicans, anybody. If you come into this country illegally or harm us or take away benefits, I’m against it.”

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On Marathon Monday, the Tsarnaev brothers violated Islam; they broke the Shari A’h, they committed heinous crimes against humanity, against our neighbors! They are guilty of violating Chapter Four, Verse 36 of the Holy Quran which is the Law of Islam! In this way, they are not Muslims! And now as we all recover from the shock of these actions, and as we wipe the soot from our faces, and we attempt to commence with healing ourselves, as Muslims we preach the message of honoring our neighbors!

– Imam Ibrahin Rahim, Friday Prayers at Yusuf Mosque, 27 April 2013

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There is a corner in every human heart made to be filled with hatred, fear, and violence. It is our common curse, and when we feed that space, it grows larger, stronger, and more vicious. Whoever you are, wherever you are from, whatever you believe, that corner exists within you. You know it because you have filled it, in one way or another, at one time or another, because it is there, and because you are human.

The great challenge of our common humanity, and of every individual human, is to make a void of that space as best we can. In that simple discipline lives freedom, for it is our hatreds that bind us and stagger us to ruin. Hatred of the “Other” is the puppet string upon which we dangle. When you hate someone you have never met for who they are or what they believe, you are doing the work of those whose joy is in your rage.

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Today we insist to our neighbors that we Muslims are people of Peaceful Covenant. As our neighbors, your blood is sacred, your lives are sacred: no one has a right to kill anyone of us for any reason!

– Imam Ibrahin Rahim, Friday Prayers at Yusuf Mosque, 27 April 2013

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When you succumb to hate, when you fill that dark and ravening space within your heart, you become someone else’s fool.

Peace be unto you, and unto us all.