Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah delivers an insightful talk about the cultural imperative of Islam.

- More Dr. Umar at http://mcceastbay.org/umar
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Shaykh Dr. Umar's talk is based on this article that he had authored in 2004: http://mcceastbay.org/wp-content/uplo...

The photograph slides from his talk are at: http://mcceastbay.org/wp-content/uplo...

This talk was delivered at the Muslim Community Center - East Bay (MCC East Bay) in Pleasanton, California on Friday, April 6, 2018.

As Sheikh Dr. Umar Faruq Abd Allah explains in this talk, good cultural conventions have the power of law. They are given the same priority that law has, as long as they do not actually contradict Islamic law. Unfortunately, this is an idea that we have lost over the past 200 years.

This does not, of course, mean that we begin to drink alcohol if we come to a culture in which alcohol is prevalent. This only applies to cultural practices which agree with the rules we follow as Muslims. What this means is that Muslims are never aliens, no matter where they go. This was the way Muslims lived for a thousand years. This is why scholars called Islam a crystal clear river; because it is pure and clear, reflecting the color of the bedrock.

Therefore, if the culture was Chinese, Islam would look Chinese. If the culture was Indian, Islam would look Indian. If it goes to Europe, Islam would look European–such as Bosnian culture, which was a beautiful European Muslim culture, destroyed during the genocide.

Muslims are not cultural predators, and Islam has not come to destroy culture. The governing concept was, “unity in diversity.” Today, cultures are being destroyed through the global mono-culture, which is not a culture. Because of this, usually the way we dress doesn’t carry a specific message of our identity.

- More Shaykh Faruq Abd-Allah: http://mcceastbay.org/umar

Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah (Wymann-Landgraf) is an American Muslim, born to a Protestant family in Columbus, Nebraska. He grew up in Athens, Georgia, where both of his parents taught at the University of Georgia. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Missouri with dual majors in history and English literature. In his last year there, he won a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and entrance to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York to pursue a Ph.D. program in English literature. Shortly after coming to Cornell, Dr. Abd-Allah read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which inspired him to embrace Islam. He subsequently altered his field of study and transferred to the University of Chicago, where he studied Arabic and Islamic studies and received his doctorate with honors for a dissertation on the origins of Islamic law, “Malik's Concept of ‘Amal in the Light of Maliki Legal Theory.” He taught at the Universities of Windsor (Ontario), Temple, and Michigan. He then went to Spain to teach Arabic in Granada. Two years later, he was appointed to the Department of Islamic Studies at King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah, where he taught Islamic studies and comparative religions for several years. During the time he spent in Jeddah, Dr. Abd-Allah was able to study with a number of traditional scholars. He then returned to the United States in 2000 under the auspices of the Nawawi Foundation in Chicago. He taught Islamic Studies at Darul Qasim Institute in Chicago from 2012 to 2013. He is currently engaged in independent research, writing and teaching activities with institutions across the United States, Europe and Africa with a focus on Islamic Theology.

For centuries, Islamic civilization harmonized indigenous forms of cultural expression with the universal norms of its sacred law. It struck a balance between temporal beauty and ageless truth and fanned a brilliant peacock’s tail of unity in diversity from the heart of China
to the shores of the Atlantic. Islamic jurisprudence helped facilitate this creative genius. In history, Islam showed itself to be culturally friendly and, in that regard, has been likened to a crystal clear river. Its waters (Islam) are pure, sweet, and life-giving but—having no color of their own—reflect the bedrock (indigenous culture) over which they flow.

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