What I’m here for is just to give you the sense that you need more knowledge, you have to come back home, take books and start working. It’s a gathering to give you a sense of the need for more knowledge.
Come back home and buy books and try to make your mind.
If this is your contribution, the level of literacy even among the people reading in the United States of America, in Europe now is lower and lower every year. The people read less.
What is your contribution? You have the Quran saying “Read in the name of your Lord,” you have to read and read many books, but we are not doing that.
So we want superficial commitment to our religion. This is heavy.
It’s all about knowledge. If you want to change the world, change your mind, build your mind, build your intellect.
Confidence
The first one is confidence. Be confident. This is your religion, it’s coming from Allah.
Put your trust in Him and just be confident. Confident means don’t react, {when the ignorant address them, they say, “Peace!}.
My confidence is not my aggressiveness. My confidence is my calm, my tranquility, my well-being. I’m not going to react.
Consistency
The second one is consistency. Consistency means that Islam is great but not all Muslims are great and good. Consistency means that we should acknowledge the failures.
We should acknowledge our weaknesses. We should acknowledge that some Muslims are not doing well. So this consistency is important coming with our critical mind. Questioning our behavior in the name of our principles.
Communication
The third one is communication. Be vocal in this society. Can I tell you something? We are in societies where critical debates are now being removed from the picture. You have to come in conferences organizing debates, but not only in Islam, debates on anything: Sociology, social problems, racism, or global warming.
Organize debates. Be people who promote intellectual creativity. Be people in this society who come up with ideas and creativity. Organize debates in schools and in universities, and not only about Islam, because we give the impression to the people that we only care about Islam and Muslims. It’s as if the others are not important. We have to come with communication.
Contribution
The fourth C is contribution. Our presence is a gift, we have to contribute.
Creativity
The fifth C is creativity. In arts, I would like in this room to have people coming and writing novels. Writing poetry. Be able to promote something which is an “American Islamic arts” in this society with our ethics. You have skills. Be involved in this. The Muslim community needs that.
Contestation
Contestation is the sixth C; to be able to say NO. If you are loyal to your country you have to be critically loyal to your country. There is no blind loyalty. You should be able to say to your government “What you are doing for example in Afghanistan and Iraq and not supporting the Palestinian rights is wrong.” You should be able to say this with confidence.
But when I’m coming here and I can see in one gathering that some of the students can’t ask the questions they want because we are directing the questions, then there is something wrong in our freedom here.
When I see that sometimes we are directing the political thinking because we want something to be said and something else not to be said I say “I’m sorry, I’m not going to accept this.”
It’s very easy to show that you are courageous, but to be courageous and to do the job in your daily life is the thing. Never keep quiet on injustices against the Muslims and also against the Tibetans or against the African people in Congo where people are being killed.
Compassion
The last C is the very essence of our discussion here “Compassion”. Please brothers and sisters at the end of the day all these thoughts should be within an envelope.
Forgive and be compassionate. Spread love around you and let the people understand that at the end all what we are trying to do is to spread peace, and that’s something which is always to be said for us. It’s difficult to be a Muslim, but please remain positive.