Eid-ul-Adha and the 15th Remembrance of 9/11 – How Should Muslims Proceed?

Hakeem Muhammad, “Truth to Power” –Be Unapologetically Muslim

Regardless of what date Eid falls on the Gregorian calendar, the moral message that this holiday teaches us is always the same: Total obedience to the will of Allah (SWT) as our highest form of sacrifice. To cancel Eid festivals or to not go in 100 percent in our festivals in efforts to accommodate public sensibilities is to acquiesce to racist notions of collective guilt. It is the exact opposite of what Eid teaches and would make Muslims complicit in our own oppression.

The same bigots who would berate Muslims for honoring Eid on a date near to September 11 are those who have no qualms with continued Christopher Columbus Day celebrations. They are the same folks who would ignore the pleas of Fredrick Douglass’s brilliant speech: “What to the American slave is your Fourth of July?” They are the same folks who would ignore the pleas of Native-American activists, who believe holidays such as Thanksgiving glorify settler-colonialism. Who are they to accommodate?

9/11 was a tragedy. We should keep the victims in our prayers and make dua for a safer world. But we should not retreat or back down one single iota in our ibadaa (worship), whether private or public. We should go into Eid striving in the path of Allah (SWT), having no fear for the criticism of any critic seeking to exemplify what it means to be unapologetically Muslim.

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