Teach-In at Stanford's 'Liberated Zone'
"Islam and the Search for Justice": with audio recording
Students all over the world have transformed their university campuses to sites of protests against the genocide in Gaza. It is a watershed moment of global solidarity for Palestine, and unsurprisingly, it is receiving brutal and violent crackdowns from pro-Israel mobs, the police and university admins across the US in places like Columbia U. and UCLA. For Stanford University students, this encampment is their second one: they resurrected their sit-in after the university forcibly removed their base in February, which stood strong for 115 days. Doing this in Silicon Valleyāon a hostile campus which I know intimately well, one that houses the notoriously Zionist- leaning Hoover Institutionāis both historic and heroic.
On May 1st, 2024, I was honored to be invited by the student encampment organizers, the Muslim Student Union and Students for Justice in Palestine to lead a teach-in on the theme of āIslam and the Search for Justice.ā The audience was a beautiful, diverse mix of young and brilliant Muslim and non-Muslim students, so I geared my remarks to be a general primer to the topic. Teaching at a āLiberated Zoneā was one of the most enjoyableāand liberatingāteaching experiences I have ever had on a US campus.
These students deserve our outmost respect and support.
ā
Thank you for restoring my faith in this campus. Thank you for being part of this beautiful spark that has ignited a global movement for change, one that is even giving solace and hope to the people of Gaza, our brothers and sisters who are still being killed, orphaned, maimed, displaced and famined. Those for whom we gather today to talk a little bit about Islam and the search for collective liberation and justice.
Speaking of sites of radical change and transformation, you could say that Islam itself started when one man by the name of Muhammad broke away from the conventional modes of living of his time. Before he became a Prophet, he would go into his own solo āencampmentā in the Cave of Hira on the outskirts of Mecca for several weeks every year to escape the ills of Meccan society and undergo intense contemplation on God, the universe and existence. It was in that encampment, away from the comfort of his home and his bed, that everything changed. In the cave, the Archangel Gabriel appeared and instructed him to recite the first verse of the Qurāan, which constituted one, simple command:
āReadā ā He said, three times.
If one word could undergird the entirety of the Islamic tradition, āReadā (or āreciteā) would be it. Scholars on Islam have emphasized the centrality of the pursuit and transmission of knowledgeāand the spiritual and intellectual transformation that come with itā as the hallmark of Muslim civilizations across space and time. Ā
Today, Gazan society is no different. Ā Gaza has the highest percentage of people with PhDs per square mile on the planet. While all of Gazaās universities and schools (309 of them, to be exact) have bombed destroyed, not a single US university president condemned this act of scholasticide. Doctors, teachers, lawyers, professors, engineers have all been targeted in the most inhumane, most well documented, attempts at cultural erasure in the 21st century. Ā
This Peopleās University is the most poetic tribute to their lives and their legacies. To their finished and unfinished scholarship. To their realized and unrealized dreams. This teach-in we gather today for is not only for their liberation, but for our own. They taught us that to truly fight for them to be free from subjugation, colonization and humiliation, we must free ourselves too; from our own fears and inhibitions, from our failed systems, from hypocritical institutions and the oppressiveness of the status quo.
That moment has finally come.
It can easily be said that the core principle of the Qurāan is emancipatory Justice: in Chapter entitled an-Nisa, we learn of this verse: āoh who haveĀ believe, be persistent in standingĀ firm for justice, witnesses for AllÄh, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives.ā Or if I may add, your colleagues, professors or university admins, too.
Even we Muslims sometimes tend to forgetādue to centuries of distorting the truth by the powers that be and the treachery of the native informants among us, due to centuries of fear mongering, weaponizing and demonizing Islamā we tend to forget that, since the beginning, Islam itself came as a liberatory system of belief and practice. It came to eradicate a time of rampant ignorance called Jahiliyya. When Islam began, it was the weakest and most disenfranchised people that were attracted to the message of the Oneness of God and the establishment of justice and peace for all humanity. The first Muslims were orphans, widows and slaves. They were fought, ridiculed and tortured by the Meccan elite. They were called all manners of names. Tormented and, abused. Ā The Qurāan tells us that even the Prophet was called ācrazyā āa magicianā and a āfraudā and endured the worst forms of torture. But theyālike you todayāstood firm. It can be said that their perseverance changed the course of history and established the faith of more than 2 billion people today, the majority faith of the Palestinian people. Ā
It is important to note that the Prophet Muhammadāpeace be upon himāwas not sent to affirm the status quo and to ākeep the peaceā: Ā rather, he struggled intensely for deep societal and global change. Throughout that struggle he lost loved ones, connections, his respectability and upward mobility in society and sacrificed his entire life to spiritual and literal combat against injustice, tribalism, chauvinism, corruption, worshiping idols, and the subjugation of women and girls. He said to his followers: āoh my beloveds, I have forbidden injustice upon myself and have made it forbidden for you, so do transgress and commit injustice.ā
In typical human nature, the return to a more expedient, corrupt, status quo happened less than 60 years after the Prophetās death, in the Battle of Karbala in modern day Iraq, when the Meccan ruling elite wanted to re-establish their power through the Umayyad Caliphate. The Prophetās grandson, Imam Hussain, stood defiantly in the face of the corrupt army of the ruler Yazid and declared āthe likes of me will never obey the likes of you.ā For this unwavering stance he lost his life.
In this sense, like in any religious or philosophical traditions, corrupting interests and interpretational politics come into play. Today, there are two understandings of Islam: an Islam of quietism, based on surface, ideological platitudes that are simply concerned with strict legalism and harsh ritual devoid of transcendental meaning. And then, on the other hand, there is the Islam enshrined in stances like that of Imam Hussein: an Islam of dignity, sacrifice, of lived principles, of courage and honor, and the internalizing the understanding that we see embodied in Gaza to dayāthat is better to die honorably than to live in subservience. Than to live as a hypocrite.
That is why the Western, protestant worldview towards religion and that of the Empire is so agitated by Islam in its latter form: it is seen as too unapologetic, too rebellious in its refusal to conform to the dictates of those in charge. It is seen as too decentralized, too un-moored, and hence, too volatile to transformative, collective transcendental change. It scares them. That is why the establishment scholars of both past and present and the powers-that-be would rather us simply adopt an Islam of an insular set of rituals without deep concern for the wellbeing of others in society and for humanity. Without struggling against oppression.
This is a dangerous and false construct that must be shunned as part of an age-old campaign to deform and reform revelation for pernicious worldly interests. Ā
This encampment reminds me of a central Qurāanic narrative theme. The Qurāan is rife with stories of change-makers that often come from the most unexpected places. More often the not, those that end up leading change are those who are themselves products of oppressive systems but end up turning the tables from within. The Prophet Ā Mohammadļ·ŗ was himself from the tribe of Quraysh, the leading Ā noble clan of the Meccan elite, but was outlier among them, āthe black sheep,ā so to speak, the fatherless orphan. Similarly, Moses had to face Pharaoh not as an outsider, but as someone who grew up in his court. Ā In this hadith, in this well-known saying of the Prophet Muhammad he said: āThe most noble struggle is a just word in the face of a tyrant.ā
This is exactly what these student encampments represent: a beautiful, brave, just word in the face of a tyrannical system.
Out of many, this hadith encapsulates the spirit of justice-seeking as the central core of Islam. But at the end of the day, any system of beliefāno matter how goodāis susceptible to being weaponized by the interests of the powerful. As we can see, repressive, colonially-installed, corrupt regimes in the Muslim world today use the excuse of āpeaceā āsecurityā and āpietyā to whip consciousness out of the masses they lord over and wear the garb of Islam as a convenient tool for worldly domination and control.
Ultimately then, fighting injustice starts as a deeply personal affair. Ā It is a path reserved for those who are sincere in their belief. Just because one claims be Muslim does not make you automatically better than anyone else. Theologically, we reject the idea of a āchosen peopleā, there is no notion of being a card-carrying member of the faith based on race. The word Muslim is a verb: it means to actively let go of oneās base attachments and return devotedly to God. So, to be a Muslim, one has to earn it, to walk the walk and talk the talk. Ā
It is also worth reminding that injustice in not recent phenomenon, nor is it a problem born simply out of the experience of colonialism: injustice, is in essence, a human problem. In any era, the truth is rarely popular, and has only a small minority of protective custodians. The Qurāan tells us of them: of those that will do everything to safeguard and uphold it. That there will always be a select few of people who are sincere, who would sacrifice their comforts and their own interests for upholding what is just and what is trueāno matter the consequences.
Ā Ā The Qurāan also describes in vivid detail the affair of the hypocritesāthose who will fight the truth, then, when the tables have turned, they will pretend they were with us all along. Injustice is a human problem as old as time itself. It is as old as Cane and Abel, but the understanding is: injustice always begins at the level of individual. So one could say that the true source of oppression is the unexamined life. It begins on the level personal accountability as the core basis. Just like institutions like this one are only as good as the people that make it up, just like injustice comes from people, ājustice will also come through people,ā to quote the wonderful Palestinian legal scholar Noura Erekat. If I can summarize Islamās approach to justice-seeking it would be this: it is the act of transforming the inner chambers of the individual heart through transcendental knowledge, to impart lasting societal and global change. So, change starts from the awakening of person to person, moving all the way to the collective whole. Like a few raindrops becoming an ocean. Just like these student encampments worldwide.
Unfortunately, such understandings of Islam escape us due to the rhetoric of the āWar on Terror.ā A lot of peopleāeven Muslims themselvesāhave internalized much of the fear-based messaging on Islam. The rhetoric of dehumanization towards Islam, Muslims and Arabs is considered the most acceptable form of racism in mainstream media, government, and public discourse today. Ā Decades of this hardwired programmingāthat is Islam is somehow savage, inferior or less thanācontinues to feed and sustain the narrative behind the genocide in Palestine. This unabashed, systemic willful ignorance and arrogance brought us to this moment that feels like the very abyss of injustice, that we donāt even realize that we are living in an age of Muslim internment from the West Bank to Uyghur camps to the Rohingya, to the carceral system in the US.
The demonization dynamics at play today were outline in the seminal work of the late, great Professor Edward Said in his magnum opus, Orientalism. He showed just how the narrative of civilizational othering was the justification for military dominance and colonialism in majority Arab and Muslim lands. Many would be stunned to know that Said, who, himself was once the āblack sheepā professor of the IDF-controlled Security State of Columbia University and father of Palestine Studies wrote Orientalism here, at Stanford. In his fellowship year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1975-76. Though Said focuses more on the āOrientā and the construct of the Middle East as a site of Western fascination, exoticization, loathing and control, my research focuses more on representations of Islam during the colonial period, particularly in West and North Africa.
My own research shows that every Muslim group or individual who did not yield to colonial rule was labeled as āfanaticalā or āradicalā from as early as the 1800s. This game of fierce demonization, of dehumanization and otherization has always been the name of the game. Anyone who resisted was seen as a threat, as someone worthy of quick extermination. The irony is that those who terrorized native populations in the name of Western supremacy saw themselves as the epitome of progress and civilization. These Orwellian dynamics are centuries old.
In my PhD research from another āoccupiedā elite institution, Harvard, I wrote about the anti-colonial black Muslim warrior scholars who were dismissed by Orientalists as āradical mysticsā, when in fact, they represented the highest ideals of Islamic principles in action through their mastery of Arabic and other sacred sciences. Later warrior scholars like the Shaykh Umar al-Mukhtar of Libya, who resisted Italian colonization, left lasing lessons on the ethics and etiquette of decolonization.
In a famous incident, he and his men captured two Italian soldiers as prisoners. One of his generals told him to kill them, because they kill us. He famously replied, āthey are not our teachers.ā Remember that the next time you get doxed, heckled, and verbally assaulted by counter-protestors. Ā
These exemplarsāthese anti-colonial warriors I devote so much time to studyingāwere both freedom fighters and principled scholars in the same breath. This was not a contradiction. They were the they were the way they were because of their fully actualized and activated understanding of just what it means to be fearless stewards of God on earth. Interestingly, the meaning for steward in Arabic is ākhalifaā Ā and the most likely etymology of the word California is derived from the ArabicĀ word khalif-ornia. So, let us ruminate on this idea of this Liberated Zone as a site of stewardshipāas a Cali-fate āfor justice and humanity on these occupied, unceded territories of the Ohlone tribes.
To wrap up, one silver lining of times of outrageous evil is that they are revelatory, they are course correcting, they allow us to smash the figurative idols we once held as infallible. They demand a radical shift in our responses. We have understood that we cannot expect the same results doing exactly what weāor generations before usāhave been doing.
Clearly, scripture and history have taught us that change never comes easily. And the hardest change is from within the halls of power. Just as Moses had Pharaoh, and Mohammed faced the Quraysh, Palestinians are facing one of the most brutal, most militarized Pharaohs in human history. Doing what no government or country could, this popular student movement is calling out for Palestinians: āyou do not have to face this alone.ā
By taking this stance, you are standing on the shoulders of change-makers before you. From Jesus who stood up against the Roman Empire, all the way to those who stood up against slavery, lynching, Jim Crow, Vietnam, South African apartheid, Iraq and Afghanistan. These are the modern-day footsteps on the Prophetic path.
Because what is this encampment doing if not smashing the idols of complacency, the illusion of powerlessness and the specter of powerful intuitions in exchange for your conscience, your comfort and upward mobility?
At the end of the day, it all boils down to individual choice. Just like some of you took the time to educate yourselves and made the conscious choice to be here, there are those among your colleagues who choose willful ignorance and prefer a life of empty ritual and meaningless routine. To each their own.
Just like there are two understandings of Islamāone of control and domination and one of collective liberation, it is increasingly clear that there are two Stanfords as well: one that seeks to remain complicit in genocide, vs. the Stanford you representāthe Stanford of the higher moral path. It is as simple as that.
You sitting here today, in this collective awakeningāin this student movement as a conscientious objection to genocide, in this pivotal moment in human historyā you remind me of this Qurāanic verse: āThose who were warned, āYour enemies have mobilized their forces against you, so fear them,ā but the warning only made them grow stronger in faith and they replied, āAllah alone is sufficient as an aid for us and He is the best Protector.ā
You do not have to adhere to any faith or belief system to have principles. To be fearless. Muslim or not, the sentiment of the verse still holds: anyone who smashes the idols of fear and repression is closer to the Divine path of sacrificeāof placing oneās convictions over comfortsāthan those who use their faith as a fig leaf for their cowardice.
Ultimately, that is exactly the highest ideal of faith and the beautiful human spirit embodied in the people of Gaza that Israel so badly wants to quash and destroy. What they donāt understand is, the more repressive and brutal they are, the stronger the faith of the Palestinian people gets.
Their singular faith has led to a global awakening. This awakening is Palestinian. It is now here.
In stark contrast to your Zionist colleagues and university administrators, you are not squandering your privilege here by being here at Stanford. By establishing this Liberated Zone, this beautiful Peopleās University, you are re-claiming your agency and taking ownership of your education into your own hands and saying: āthey are not our teachers.ā
In an ideal world, a place of so-called higher learning would be the one apologizing to its studentsāashamed to have any ties with genocidal military superpowersābut alas, in this perverted era of double speak, in this age of pervasive ignorance and arrogance, those who dare to challenge archaic institutions and violent, unjust systems are the ones that considered āunrulyā and āradicalā for simply demanding that their tuition money not go towards the killing of children.
But if I have learned one thing from Islamic and human history it is this: stand firm. Those on the side of justice will always prevail. You are putting the āhigherā back in higher education: higher morals, higher standards, higher aims of what true faith and the pursuit of knowledge is actually about: eradicating ignorance, identifying moral failure, and having the wisdom and courage to stand up for those who are powerless.