A Message from an Ancient Future

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin’s speech was given at the Black Interfaith in the Time of Climate Crisis event at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in May 2022. Interfaith America’s Black Interfaith Project is proud to partner with Union Theological Seminary’s Center for Earth Ethics for this special event where former Vice President of the United States Al Gore keynoted and where a diverse panel of speakers were featured, including Black Interfaith Fellow Ibrahim Abdul-Matin. 

We Speak to The Pharaohs 

قَالَ رَبِّ اشْرَحْ لِي صَدْرِي وَيَسِّرْ لِي أَمْرِي وَاحْلُلْ عُقْدَةً مِّن لِّسَانِي يَفْقَهُوا قَوْلِي 

“[Moses] said, My Lord, Expand for me my breast (or open my heart), ease for me (make easy) my task and untie (loosen) the knot from my tongue that they may understand my speech.”

So let us begin today not as ones sitting in judgement. You are not better than another person here. In my tradition, in Islam we know that one’s wealth or possessions or accumulation of things is not what gives us any value. Islam sees each individual human being as having intrinsic value and worth. Your soul is what makes you special, not what you make or use or what you can buy or what you look like. So, we start today acknowledging that as we sit here today all the things in the known universe, every action that has happened, every movement of even the smallest quark to the largest quasar has all occurred for this moment to happen here and now. If we gently look around the room and make eye contact, that every single one of us was brought here in this room through all of history and all of time for this moment to happen right now. We must understand that all of our souls, not these bodies, not this presentation of ourselves, our souls were meant and written by the Creator of the Universe to be in community with one another. 

I just want also extend my blessings to all the people in the room, the team at Interfaith America, my mom and dad are here so please give them some snaps. I also just want to be clear about some things. Just because sometimes people make assumptions.  

So, I am Muslim, and what do we believe? 

We believe most fundamentally in the Oneness of God 

In Green Deen, in my book, I talk about the idea of Tawhid, which is that we acknowledge the Oneness of God and His creation. So if you are standing at the top of a mountain, which many of you have done, or you are standing at the edge of a great sea and you sigh and say, “look what God has created” you are actually acknowledging ‘look what I am connected to’, ‘look what I am a part of’. Because you like that sunset, you like that mountaintop, you like that meadow and those rolling hills in Upstate New York, you are created.  

We Believe in the Angels of God 

In Islam, we believe that angels are pure and spiritually obedient beings, created by God to fulfill His commands. 

We Belief in the Revelations (Books) of God 

Muslims believe in the Revelations sent by Almighty God to His Prophets, including the Qur’an, the Torah, the Gospel, the Scrolls of Abraham and of course, my Aunt Dell’s favorite who lived out here in Scottsburg, Virginia, the Psalms of David. 

We Believe in the Prophets of God 

All Messengers and Prophets of God such as Noah, Moses, Solomon, Jesus – even the ones we don’t know about, the ones whose stories are not written.  

We Believe in the Day of Judgment 

Muslims believe in an appointed Day of Judgment and in Heaven and Hell. And, unlike some of your faiths, we don’t know if we are going to go [to heaven] or not. So everyday we don’t know what’s going on! 

We Believe in Resurrection after Death 

And that we will be called to account for what we did.  

I say all so that you understand what I often call my cosmology… and by cosmology, I mean how I understand the science of the origin and development of the universe.  

The Creator of the Universe created both the seen world and the unseen world. Among God’s creations in the unseen world are the Angels and the Jinn. The “Jinn”’ are supernatural creatures that exist in a world parallel to our own. Almost every culture boasts stories and legends of unseen creatures. Without diverging too much into this conversation in Islam, Jinn can be both good and evil. We have different words and names for these entities in all of our traditions but I want to say clearly, so that all being present might understand and know If there are demons and evil spirits in this room and in this space, leave. I tell you to leave. Your whisperings, your enmity, your doubt, your lies, your hearsay, all of that negative energy is not welcome here. 

What do I mean when I say a Message from the Ancient Future? 

In Jeremiah 6:16 it says: 

“Stand at the crossroads and look; 

    ask for the ancient paths, 

ask where the good way is, and walk in it, 

    and you will find rest for your souls. 

 When we talk about walking, we are not talking about “I’m a pedestrian walking,” right? We’re talking about, “that’s the path and you walk in that path, that’s The Way and you walk in that way.” In Islam, we say Deen – your deen is your path or your way of life. In this context I want to bring us to this point and the idea of a crossroads.  

As Black people in the country, there have always been crossroads in our context and our existence. There was a crossroad when the European invaders came to Africa and whispered into the ears of tribal leaders, at that crossroads, those tribal leaders could have said, “No, we are not listening to you. We will not fight the neighboring tribe, even if we don’t share a religion with them, even if we don’t share a language with them, we will not fight them and sell them, our captives, [to you] into slavery.” But we made a different choice. Sadly, most of us were put into slavery because of greed, and of malice and negative thoughts and those negative ideas. There was a crossroads here, later, on this soil, when some chose to rebel, and mostly they died. When they fought back, and they fought hard but they didn’t win. 

There was a crossroads when people like Black Moses, when she called to many of them, “Let’s go! We’re going now!” and some of them said, “No, I’m staying.” And some of them went, some of the members of my family made it all the way up to Canada. Before the Civil War they established an entire thriving community, and apparently, they built some amazing furniture. Imagine rocking in one of those rocking chairs? 

There was a crossroads for freed men and women like George Washington Carver, who I acknowledge is one of the godfathers of the EJ [Environmental Justice] movement. Became the best in the world at taking their knowledge of the natural world and understanding how to use the scientific method to become legends of science and environmental stewardship.  

They put Black and Brown people at the center of deciding how the natural world around them should be used in a way that does not hurt, maim, destroy, or kill. He is the godfather of how to use science to the best of our abilities. Instead of using science to create weapons, using science to understand the most [about Creation] because science at that level is literally a form of worship. 

We are at a crossroads now.  

And we often like to think about what is the state of Black America? What is the state of our people? And oftentimes when we want to ask that question we get into statistics. And sadly if you go back ten years, twenty years, thirty years, forty years, fifty years the statistics are still the same. It’s depressing. If you are a black male, I am 45, it is depressing. I grew up in the crack era. There were literally bullets flying around. We were protected, our parents took care of us, but around us it was dangerous, but it feels like that again. So why do we keep going in this cycle? 

One indicator that I want to call our attention to, the Urban League talks about the attack on voting rights. And to connect that to the climate crisis, why do you think black and brown people are not as consistent voters? Partially, because the climate crisis is pushing people out of their homes. Forcing people into migration that they do not necessarily want to do. It is much easier to vote when you have been voting at the same polling place for the last 30 years. But if you have to constantly change where you are voting and you have to move to another city and move to another place one of the last thing on your list is “I’m going to go sign up to vote.” The more we have the climate crisis the more voting rights are going to be under attack. The more people are going to be disenfranchised.  

I also want to bring us to a point I think in terms of our folks, Black folks, one great indicator of us, right now, as always, is culture. One way that we understand, “where we are at” is in terms of culture. Now some of you have listened to the new Kendrick Lamar album. Okay, some of you, some of you have also listened to the new Black Star album,I just want to see, no, not as many.  

So, I want to lean in there for a second. But I will take a little detour into the very beginnings of hip hop when in the rubble of the Bronx and the rubble of New York City, when “the Bronx was burning,” what did we do?