Omar Suleiman
speaker
1,922 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2023
last heard Feb 2024
Omar Suleiman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Rabbis, pastors, again, it's not just Jewish leadership. It's also Christian leadership. I think that it's important for those that have claimed to be allies in the fight against Islamophobia to see that you cannot be opposed to Islamophobia while also extending anti-Palestinian bigotry.
I think people should watch Reverend Unduriz Haq's sermon on Christmas, Jesus and the Rebel. It was deeply profound. I had a chance to speak to Mitri Raheb from the Lutheran Church there as well. No, they're devastated. You know, it was eye-opening to many people here when Justin Amish, who was a Republican congressman, right?
Palestinian Christian Republican congressman posted about his own family dying in one of the church bombings. So it's strange, strange times. And I think that it shows that the philosophy of hate that drives this terrible policy is secular at its root and not religious.
So objectively speaking, if you were to take the verses of the Quran about violence and compare them just from a purely percentage-based comparison to the New Testament and the Old Testament, you would find less verses about war in the Quran than the Old Testament or the New Testament. And there are plenty of studies to speak to that.
Deeper than that, contextualizing the birth of Islam, the revelation of the Quran, which was over 23 years, in response to deep persecution of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, makes it very clear that none of those verses are what they've been made out to be. If Muslims believed that they had to kill people wherever they are, mankind would not exist. There are two billion of us, right?
If we believe that we were called by the Quran to hurt people, and to kill people simply for being non-believers, right? It would not make for a sustainable world. So Islam is not violent. And I think that the history of Muslims also bears witness to that. The history of Islam is a history of contribution, is a history of building, is a history of medicine and science and math.
And of course, Muslims have sometimes fallen short of Islamic standards in the past and in the present. But if you look at the overall history of Islam and the history of the Muslim community, that's not the case. And when you look at the present, you know, Muslim community around the world, Muslims do not account for a greater proportion of violence than other faith communities.
And again, the word terrorist is a functionless and meaningless word because to me it's no less violent if it's commanded by a head of state or by a government. than by a non-state actor. So Muslims do not account for a greater portion of violence now, nor have they accounted for a greater portion of violence in the past.
Because they allow for greater violence against the Muslim community domestically and abroad. The United States has launched wars against primarily Muslim countries, right? And has a particularly violent foreign policy towards the Muslim world.
And the Muslim community here in the United States has dealt with, unfortunately, multiple aggressive iterations of programs of suppression and surveillance under Republican and Democratic administrations. And so there's a convenience to that Islamophobia.
There's a convenience to that framing of the Muslim community that also distracts from other forms of violence that are deeply pervasive and present, including the ones that are committed by the government itself.
So Muslims honor the history of all of the prophets. So all of the prophets that have walked in that place, all of the prophets that have worshiped in that place, all of that makes it sacred. So it's not separated for Muslims from post-Muhammad, peace be upon him, versus prior to Muhammad, peace be upon him, in terms of the sanctity of that place. So we honor it.
And Masjid al-Aqsa in particular is the place where the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, leads the other prophets in prayer in the night of what's known as al-Isra' al-Mi'raj, the night journey of the Prophet, peace be upon him. And then he ascends to the heavens and back. And it's also the first Qibla, which is the first place of direction of prayer for us. So before Muslims,
faced Mecca and prayer for the first half of Islam, they actually faced towards Jerusalem in their prayer. It was our direction of prayer and it remained a fundamental part of our faith. a fundamental holy sanctuary. There are three sanctuaries in Islam, Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, and Masjid al-Aqsa is precious to us.
And so you can imagine then the pain of watching innocent Palestinian worshipers being stomped on by Israeli soldiers or skunk water being sprayed on people as they're trying to walk in or tear gassing taking place in the nights of Ramadan.
in that place, the restrictions on people that live right next to it and that cannot pray in it due to the certain classification of Palestinian that they've been given or the age, right? Because generally speaking, if you're younger, you're not allowed to go to Masjid al-Aqsa, even if you live within the occupied territories.
So it's tough to watch such a sacred place with such an ugly occupation. But I'll also say this, that the sanctity of a human being, the sanctity of just one person is greater than the sanctity of any place of worship to us. So the sanctity of one individual in Gaza or one individual in Jerusalem is greater to us than the sanctity of a place of worship. But it is all certainly interconnected.
The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, says to the Kaaba itself that the value of a believer's dignity and honor is greater than the value of the structure itself. And so when I see a person in Gaza aggressed upon, when I see one , when I see one child that's greater to me than even Al-Aqsa, but Al-Aqsa is at the heart of who we are as well.
And it's certainly at the heart of the Palestinian cause. It's a place of prophets and it's a place that should be treated prophetically.
Yeah, we have Quran TikTok trends where you had a few people that went on camera and said, you know, I'm reading the Quran for the first time. And I think that that's the beauty of the faith of the people of Gaza, the beauty of their resilience. You know, when you're looking at these people,
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