On Charlottesville & The Boston Holocaust Memorial

Assalamu Alaikum Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As Shaykh Yasir has been teaching us throughout the past two years, a core tenet to living the Prophetic life is recognizing and affirming the dignity of each and every human. Indeed, when America has been at its best, it has fully embraced this tenet.

This past weekend we witnessed the violation of this tenet in Charlottesville when three innocent lives were tragically lost due to unadulterated hate engineered by the evil of white supremacy. Then just last night hate reared its ugly head here in Boston when for the second time this summer the Holocaust memorial in downtown Boston was vandalized. Whether it be racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or any other kind of hate, we must condemn it, fight it, and overwhelm it with words and actions of love.

In that vein, our Senior Imam Shaykh Yasir will be standing alongside our Jewish brothers and sisters and speaking today at a community gathering at 3 pm at the Holocaust Memorial in Boston. We urge our community to attend in support, just as so many of our Jewish brothers and sisters have stood in support of us during times of trial for our community. We also urge each of our community members to reflect on how hate – in the form of racism, anti-Semitism or otherwise – manifests in our own lives and institutions. While we today condemn hate done by others, we know that much work needs to happen in our own community and institutions to get rid of these diseases. Let us commit to that important Prophetic work over the long haul.

Your ISBCC Family