{"id":164,"date":"2014-01-21T02:37:34","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T02:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/?p=164"},"modified":"2017-11-09T04:29:54","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T04:29:54","slug":"episode-16-keith-ellison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/episode-16-keith-ellison\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 16 – Keith Ellison"},"content":{"rendered":"

City of Residence:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Minneapolis, MN<\/p>\n

Occupation:<\/strong><\/p>\n

US Congressman \u2013 Minnesota 5th District<\/p>\n

Excerpt:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I\u2019m glad you asked that question, I actually urge Muslims to combat Islamophobia,\u00a0not to protect Islam, but to protect freedom of faith, generally. Because the truth is, it\u00a0might be Muslims today, but it could be Jews tomorrow or it could be Mormons the next\u00a0day. Remember, this country was at one time very anti-Catholic. There are still little\u00a0strains of it. When John F Kennedy was trying to become the president of the United\u00a0States, they said, \u201cWell, he shouldn\u2019t be the president because he bows to a foreign\u00a0dictator.\u201d Everybody was like, \u201cWho are they talking about?\u201d Well, the Pope. It seems\u00a0silly to us, but that is what his detractor said. The action we should take, we should work\u00a0in our interfaith groups, we should not just get together and talk, but do interfaith\u00a0action. So, why not get together Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and go out\u00a0and, like, feed the hungry. You know what I mean? This is what we should do. We should\u00a0come together as people of faith. People who are non-theists, so called atheists, we\u00a0ought to remind them, that yes people of faith cause a lot of trouble, they have wars and\u00a0violence and stuff like that associated with religious people, but Pol Pot and Stalin were\u00a0avowed atheists. So, the problem is not religion or no religion, the problem is absolutism;\u00a0\u2018my way or the highway, do it my way or you will die, or we will jail you, or we are gonna\u00a0do something bad to you if you don\u2019t follow my rigid idea of what should be.\u2019 This is the\u00a0concept. So, we have to fight absolutism, and there is nothing in the Qur\u2019an, or the\u00a0hadith, or the sunnah, or the seerah of the prophet, sallalahu alayhi wa salaam, which\u00a0suggests rigidity and non-flexibility.<\/p>\n

As a Muslim, I\u2019ve matured. It started out as a refuge, and now for me, it\u2019s a way of\u00a0living a perspective that feeds my soul, bolsters me, strengthens me, and allows me to\u00a0continue to try to do the right thing for myself, my family, and my community; in spite of\u00a0adversity, in spite of difficulty, and even in good times. Good times can be adversity too,\u00a0because it can lead you to thinking that you\u2019re doing all this, that\u2019s the challenge. When\u00a0the trouble comes, you know Islam is there. It\u2019s been a wonderful journey for me and I\u2019m\u00a0just so glad that my good friend Mafta invited me to Jumuah many years ago.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Podcast Preview:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Play\"<\/a><\/object>\n<\/div>\n

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Podcast (full length):<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Play\"<\/a><\/object>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City of Residence: Minneapolis, MN Occupation: US Congressman \u2013 Minnesota 5th District Excerpt: “I\u2019m glad you asked that question, I actually urge Muslims to combat Islamophobia,\u00a0not to protect Islam, but to protect freedom of faith, generally. Because the truth is, it\u00a0might be Muslims today, but it could be Jews tomorrow or it could be Mormons …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ep","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}