Making A Conscious Effort

By Imam El-Hajji Umar A. Sharif El-33/720

One Active Muslim after another tells us that Muslims In North America must cooperate and coordinate more if the community is to progress. Theses sisters and brothers realize we have gone just about as far as a community of individuals and factions can go. Of course, there are several North American examples of Muslims working together to advance the Islamic agenda and bring justice to this continent. But these are the pioneers, the exceptions. There is so much more work to be done, and there are so many more Muslims to be won over to the idea of working together.

Convincing Muslims to communicate, cooperate and coordinate is no easy feat. Muslims here have a history of division. We have allowed race, sex, age, ethnicity, insecurity, nationality, disrespect, distrust, ignorance, social status, arrogance and organizational loyalty to come between us for decades. But, praise be to Allah, we are beginning to realize that we cannot go on like this and be loyal to Allah. So we are starting to make a conscious effort to understand each other, to tear down these artificial barriers between us.

It’s slowly sinking into our heads that the only way we can make significant progress in Islamic education, politics, media, social services, economics, etc. is to pool our resources and work together.