Therefore, it was a demonstration of relative tolerance and accommodation when the organisers of the event chose the Muslim call to prayer inside the Washington cathedral.
This was not to be, as the representatives of the Muslim America, merely recited portions of the Quran that were largely passive of the reasons for the event. On this occasion, Muslim America, in sharp contrast with other faith groups present, refused to pray for their president, the vice president and the incoming cabinet. Most unfortunate of all, not even a single word of prayer for their country.
This patriotic incorrectness was most evident in the choice of a verse from Surat Rum, by Imam Mohammed Maged, which read, ‘‘among the signs of God is the creation of heaven and earth, and the variation in your languages and your colours. Verily, in that are signs for those who know.’’
This was interpreted as political statement of rebuke of the newly inaugurated president for his perceived racist and Islam phobic tendencies. Once more, Muslim America has failed to prove Donald Trump wrong by doing the right thing at the right place.
The event was put together to pray for the country and its leadership and not a avenue for political statements. As citizens and residents of the United States, Muslim America is obligated to put America first in everything they do, including their prayers.
The wisdom in the beautiful words of God as captured in Surat Rum is best delivered to Muslim countries of the Middle East and Africa, where racial, tribal and religious intolerance are prevalent, in direct contravention of the will of God and not in Washington, the capital of the harbinger of the best example of racial tolerance and oneness in diversity.
In Sudan, where Imam Mohammed Maged originally comes from, the Arab Muslim government of Khartoum could not manage a country whose southern half constitutes a population of Black African Christians and animists successfully that the country had to split under the weight of extreme discrimination and political exclusion of non-Arab Muslims, which led to a long armed struggle for freedom of South Sudan.
A Shite Muslim enjoys more civil liberties in America than in Saudi Arabia. A Kurdish Muslim living in Turkey is treated with less dignity than his brother living in the United States. The only recognised religion in Muslim Saudi Arabia is Islam and apostasy attracts the death penalty in a classic case of religious intolerance. Majority of Arab-Muslim countries are not racially diverse to the extent of allowing other ethno-religious groups to participate at any level of government.
The numerous proxy wars in the Middle East between regional power rivals, Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shite Iran have displaced millions of Muslims, who have besieged Christian Europe for refuge, because the oil rich Arab Gulf nations are not taking in Muslim refugees.
The lesson learnt from this refugee crisis is that Muslims must live in peace with their fellow compatriots wherever they live because when they seek refuge from the very Muslim countries where the poisonous doctrines of radical Islam emanated from, they will be denied.
The conflict of loyalty between faith and state came about as a result of the contamination of scriptural injunctions with narrow, sectional and personal interests, which have largely determined the subjective interpretation of faith into religious doctrines by revered Islamic scholars.
Regional, racial and tribal interests have been fused with faith to develop an entrenched doctrine of hate and bigotry, which makes peaceful co-existence between Muslims and other religious groups more and more difficult.
Muslims living outside the Middle East, must begin to come to terms with the reality of modern nation states with its own political and physical geographical boundaries, governed by unique laws, arising from delicate compromises by its ethno-religious and racially diverse population as a basis for peaceful existence. Muslims should begin to accept and assume the identity of the nation states in which they reside either as citizens or residents and join hands with others to defend its national security and economic interests as true patriots.
The first part of this article was published last Friday, January 27.