Aflax ayaa Casharadda Qaar ka mid ah ugu Tabarucayadda Dadka Soomaalidda Ee Doonaya in ay Bartaan Luuqadda Afka Ingiriiska iyo Afka Soomaaligga

Prof. Abdulwahid Qalinle, Adjunct Associate Professor, Law School, UMN

The Muslim Experience in Minnesota project aims to capture and convey the Muslim experience in Minnesota through oral interviews and photographic portraits. This Minnesota Historical Society funded project documented 40 Minnesota Muslims chosen carefully to represent a diverse collection of experiences.

Continuing in the series of interviews from the Muslim Experience in Minnesota project, in this entry, I feature Abdulwahild Qalinle, a Somali American who is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. He also directs the Islamic Law and Human Rights Program (IHRP) at the Law School.

Transcript of Prof. Abdulwahid Qalinle interview:

My name is Abdulwahid Qalinle. I am an American of Somali origin. I immigrated to the United States eleven years ago. Somalia has suffered severe civil strife and civil war in late 1980s to early 1990s. My family and I were displaced. We ended up in a refugee camp in neighboring Ethiopia. I then ended up in Pakistan, where, which was the only country to which I would get a visa at the time. And in early 1990s I went to Pakistan and enrolled in a university there and was living there under the mandate of the United Nations as a refugee.

And after I finished my education, in fact, I did graduate from the International Islamic University with a law degree and, and after I finished my degree, the United Nations arranged a resettlement program for all the refugees in Pakistan. And I was among those lucky ones who were able to obtain a resettlement in the United States. I arrived in the United States under the sponsorship of the Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada and I arrived here as a refugee, came here to a welcoming hand by the Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, who helped me settle down, provided me with housing, and few help here and there to cover my expenses. And that’s how I ended up here. One afternoon in my hometown of Borama, which is the northwest of Somalia, right at the border with Ethiopia there was a, there was a rebel group that was approaching to the city, and they ended up invading my city. And since we were defenseless civilians, we ended up fleeing on foot to cross the border into Ethiopia. In Pakistan there were a sizeable Somali refugees who ended up there just like me as refugees, came from all parts of Somalia.

We went through a process where you would, your name would be presented to a number of countries and those countries, based on their own criterion and their own eligibility grounds or, you know, grounds for admission or accepting refugees, they would choose from among those refugees a number of people or families that they want to accept or admit as refugees. So, I was interviewed by an officer from the then INS, Immigration and Naturalization Services of the United States, at the offices of the United Nations. And having been satisfied that there was a bonafide case for refugee and that I was, in fact, a genuine refugee, they then decided to grant me a tentative, you know, refugee status pending, you know, medical checkup or some other procedural things. And after I finished those and I completed all those processes, I was given a, a plane ticket and then I was put in touch with the Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, who then arranged my trip. And I, along with a number of other refugees, came to America. And upon arrival at JFK airport in New York, we were divided into groups, each group heading to the state where their hosting agency or family members are located. So I ended up in New York City, and then I have to take another flight across the continental United States all the way to the West coast in Las Vegas, to Las Vegas, and that’s why I ended up there.

I read a lot about America before coming to America. So I had prior information, I would say, you know, fairly significant information of the American education system, American way of life, and everything American. I will say that I only needed to see it personally or to see the physical America. And, and nonetheless, I couldn’t imagine that I would be so surprised to see that, you know, seeing it is much more different than reading about it or seeing it through TV or movies or so forth. In terms of the weather, Vegas was very similar to where I came from; very dry, hot and so forth, and desert as well. But as, when I, even before I came to the United States, I knew that Minnesota attracted a very large Somali refugees and that they were making it home here.

After I arrived here I was able to get employment from the local county here, so I became a county worker at Hennepin County here in Minneapolis. And I’ve worked there as an eligibility officer in the Department of Human Services. And while working there I began to go and attend law school here at the University of Minnesota, from which I graduated in 2004. And so I, I was able to finish my law school and then immediately after that I started teaching at the law school as an adjunct professor of Islamic Law. In Pakistan, I had a dual training. I had training in both the British Common Law as well as the Islamic law. So I did have a professional background in Islamic law; in fact, I had my Masters degree in Islamic law, or Shariah law. And so I began teaching at the U of M law school since 2004.

I traveled back to Africa, to Somalia, in fact, as a consultant for the United Nations and to also help rebuild the justice sector in the northwest part of Somalia where I am from. And I spent quite a, over, nearly 2 years there as well. And, and I came back here and I established, helped establish a project on Islamic law and human rights, at the human rights center at the U of M law school. I am leading that project right now. And I do, I do focus on the issues of, or the intersectionality and the merging of Shariah law or Islamic law and the human rights and international principles of rule of law.

Through the Somali community I also was able to get in touch with the Muslim community in general. And typically we would meet in a mosque, that’s where you meet all different kinds of Muslims as you, Muslims pray together regardless of their ethnicity and, and, and there are no separate ethnic-based denominations in Islam, so Muslims pray together from all countries. So I would meet Muslims originally from Egypt, or southeast Asia, or Turkey, or all kinds of places, or from Africa as well. So I did end up becoming a member of this community here. One of the issues that I, I was pleasantly surprised about was the fact that many employers were willing to accommodate those religious obligations that Muslims have and would allow them to pray few minutes and take that from their work, work hours. So, that is something that I, I thought was very interesting. And also the allowing Muslims, for instance, to, you know, display their own cultural identity whether it’s the dress code, whether it is the, that Muslims had based on their religion and culture. So the welcoming and reception and hospitality that Muslims received here was something that was breathtaking, I should say.

I found that I was treated fairly, I was given a good, you know, a fair shot and that, for instance, given me also a window to observe how the employees, other employees were
interacting with me, the opportunities for advancement and development which was available to me. And so I felt that I am being subject to the same rules that everybody else is subject to. My family life is a typical American family here in the sense that my wife is at the moment a stay home mom taking care of the two kids and I go to work. And our two children, who are ages of four and three, are just, you know, starting their life and are getting used to growing up. And it’s a lot of fun to, to be a father, it’s a lot of fun to be with them all the time. They are learning both languages; they speak English and they also speak Somali.

Certainly 9/11 was a life changing event for many Muslims, I would say. And Muslims in the United States felt in the days following 9/11 that they are under siege. As soon as the news came out that the perpetrators of this heinous crime were members of a, an organization that is rooted in the Muslim, Muslim world, the reaction was, as expected, very negative towards Muslims. And the perception that the people had about Muslims in general was, in my view, in general, in general, understandably negative. Many people could not, in the US, differentiate between the tiny minority Muslims who are bent on destruction, whether that is a destruction of Muslims or non-Muslims and indiscriminate destruction, and the large and vast majority of Muslims who are peace loving and would like to just, you know, live their lives as normal as they can, law-abiding and so forth. So that confusion between the two and the use of the name of Islam and Muslims and having this name associated with the Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations created a very set of, created set of challenges to Muslims here in the US.

The fact is there are, you know, arguments that are so outrageous that people should not even be bringing up. For instance, questioning whether Islam is a religion or not, or it’s cult as some people refer to it, sadly, was quite disheartening to hear because these are issues that anyone who has any knowledge about the world affairs and the history of the world and the history of the Middle East would be able to figure out. And if Islam being one of the fastest growing religions and one of the major Abrahamic religions that is very rooted and a very, very popular in many parts of the world and, you know, with, you know, adherence and members over one billion cannot be reduced to, to a cult-like, you know, organization with few lunatic members such as al-Qaeda who are misusing the name of Islam. It does require sorting out and really balancing the issues here. And so it does make me feel very uncomfortable that there is a degree of ignorance and there is a degree of misinformation, if you will, in many quarters in the U.S. about, about Islam, and that results in a very negative attitude towards Muslims.

Muslims here are very productive, they are well off economically, and they are mostly professionals or business owners doing very well. I mean when, when compared to other communities here and in America, they are very wealthy and fairly integrated. If you compare to Muslims in America and the Muslims in Europe, it’s a totally different story. I mean, Muslims in Europe are known to be living in ghettos and there is a systemic, I think, exclusion of Muslims from certain professions or certain, you know, you know, or at least, you know, the advancement or progress in Europe. In America Muslims are, are, you know, you know, preaching to all kinds of, of, of, of positions and they are fairly integrated into the community and society here in America.

A number of state legislatures in the United States recently, you know, where the, where, well, a number of legislators in a number of states tried to, you know, come up with a, with bills that would prohibit the use of Shariah in the legal system in those states. It is, it is quite pointless in my view in the sense that because these, there is no such a thing as Shariah creeping into the legal system. There is no Shariah that’s being implemented by the courts in America. For, in Oklahoma which has a very, very tiny minority Muslims, to insert or to put a constitutional amendment to ban Shariah is, I think, a waste of resources, is a waste of time and it’s completely uncalled for. And I think it’s, it’s being motivated by a sheer confusion and misunderstanding of the Muslims and Islam and Shariah. In America we have a clear separation of the sate and the religion. So the government cannot establish or help establish any religion. And, and so it is very clear in our constitution that the introduction of any religion into the legal system, whether it is Islam or any other faith, is totally unconstitutional. So there is no threat, if you will, of any, you know, of Shariah becoming the legal system of this country, you know, in my view.

So I don’t think this is, this is something that’s legitimate debate. It’s not a debate that is, that should be had. It’s based on nothing. There are no attempts to insert or to implement Shariah. Muslims who are here are subject to the American law. They would like to live by the, they came here by choice, nobody was here, brought here by force. We came here, for instance in my story, as a willing and grateful refugee who is, who understands and is grateful for the opportunities provided by this great country. And I am committed to upholding and abiding the laws of this country. And I have been doing that so far. And I am committed to that, and for me the laws of the United States and the constitution of the United States is the law that I chose to live under. And so are all the Muslims who are here.

I think those legislators should be focusing on jobs, they should be focusing on education, on, on lifting the people up instead of, you know, making allegations, well, allegations about Shariah coming here, which is totally fabricated, I think, lies and misinformation.

As a Muslim in Minnesota I think it has, it has been quite, quite an experience. I feel that I, I, I am home and I feel that I can exercise my religion the way I want, subject to the law that everybody is subject to. But I do, I do live a full life as a Muslim and I don’t think there is any inherent contradiction between being a Muslim and an American. I think, you know, Muslims here do feel that they are part, they are this community, they are becoming part of this community, and that our children will even be more, you know, integrated into the American life and that they will be, you know, or, you know, having much, much greater role in shaping the events of this country.

Muslims here are growing in number and in quality and that, you know, when you used to look at the University of Minnesota ten years ago and today, you can see the difference in terms of how many students of Muslim origin are enrolled. Those are becoming the doctors, the lawyers, the engineers of tomorrow and serving Minnesota, serving the United States and becoming, you know, you know, basically law abiding, you know, citizens of this country.

1-S:sheeg imisa bilood ayay muslimiinta u tukanaayeen qiblada beytu maqdis?
1-J: waxay u tukanaayeen 18bilood.

2-S:sheeg inta jeer ee suuratul baqara lagu sheegay magaca allaah?
2-J:waxaa lagu sheegay 282jeer.

3-S:sheeg inta jeer Qur’aanka lagu sheegay magaca Nebi muuse Cs?
3-J:waxaa lagu sheegay 113jeer.

4-S:sheeg qofkii ugu haoreeyey ee isago jihaad ku jira ka dagaalama faras dushiisa?
4-J:wuxuu ahaa miqdaad ibnu caamir.

5-S:sheeg imisa axadis ayey Bukhari iyo muslim ay ka wariyeen asxabigii weynee Abuu Dar Alqifari?
5-J:waxay ka wariyeen 281axaadiis.

6-S:sheeg sanadkii uu shahiiday Asxaabigii la oran jiray Muscab Bin cumeyr?
6-J:wuxu shahiiday sanadkii seddexaad (3-aad) ee Hijriyada.

7-S:sheeg ninkii ugu horreeyey ee islaamka oo ku dalaamay leeb?
7-J:wuxu ahaa sacad Bin abii waqaas.

8-S:sheeg ninkii ugu horreeyey ee soo saaro sabuunta lagu qubeesto?
8-J:wuxu ahaa Nebi suleymaan Cs.

9-S:sheeg asxaabigii dhashay aabihiis oo 12jir ah?
9-J:wuxu ahaa c/laahi Bin cumar Bin Caas Rc.

W/Q.abdullahi mohamed Yusuf(sayidka).
cabdale251@hotmail.com
Amsterdam_Nederland.
juurile online

By ARAB NEWS
Published: Aug 28, 2010 23:49 Updated: Aug 29, 2010 00:31

JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia will distribute 1,000 truckloads of relief supplies to Pakistan flood victims beginning Monday, an official statement said.

The relief is being arranged on the directives of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, it said, adding that Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior Prince Naif would supervise the program.

During the two-month-long relief program, trucks will carry foodstuffs such as rice, flour, cooking oil and milk, beans and lentils, the statement added.

In the first phase, 80 trucks will go to the flood-affected areas of Punjab and Kashmir. About 8,000 families in Punjab will receive 160 tons of flour, 40 tons of rice, 40 tons of lentils, 16 tons of milk and 40,000 liters of cooking oil.

Around 12,000 families in Kashmir will get 240 tons of flour, 60 tons of rice, 24 tons of lentils, 24 tons of beans, 25 tons of milk and 60,000 liters of cooking oil.

King Abdullah had earlier ordered a nationwide fundraising campaign to support Pakistan’s flood victims, which raised more than SR400 million.

On Saturday, eight Saudi planes arrived in Islamabad carrying medical equipment for a field hospital.

The floods are Pakistan’s worst-ever natural disaster in terms of the amount of damage and the number of people affected, with more than six million people forced from their homes, about a million of them in the last few days as the water flows south.

The disaster has killed about 1,600 people, inflicted billions of dollars in damage to homes, infrastructure and the vital agriculture sector.

29 August 2010 Charity towards man, in its widest sense, is laid down in the Holy Quran as the second great pillar on which the structure of Islam stands. Spending out of whatever has been given to man stands for charity in a broad sense, i.e. for acts of benevolence to humanity in general. For what Almighty God has given to man is not only the wealth which he possesses but at the faculties and power with which he has been gifted.
The most frequently recurring words for charity in the Holy Quran are Infaq, which means spending benevolently; Ihsan, which means the doing of good; Zakat, which means growth or purification, and Sadaqah, which is derived from the root, Sidq, meaning truth, and comes to signify a charitable deed.

The very words used to donate charitable deeds are an indication of the broadness of the concept.

The Holy Quran not only lays stress on such great deeds of charity as the emancipation of slaves, the feeding or the poor, taking care of orphans and doing good to humanity in general, but gives equal emphasis to smaller acts of benevolence. It is for this reason that the withholding of ma’un, which specially indicates small acts of kindness and charity, is stated to be against the spirit of prayer.

And in a similar strain the speaking of kind words to parents is referred to as Ihsan, and generally the use of kind words is recommended as in itself a charitable deed in many places in the Holy Quran. The Holy Book also speaks of extending charity not only to all men, including believers and non-believers, but also to the dumb creations.

Charity, in the sense of giving away one’s wealth, is of two kinds, voluntary and obligatory. Voluntary charity is generally mentioned in the Holy Quran as Infaq or Ihsan or Sadaqah, and though the Holy Book is full of injunctions on this subject, and hardly a leaf is turned which does not bring to mind the grand object of the service of humanity as the goal of man’s life, the subject is specifically dealt with in the 36th and 37th sections of the second chapter.

A charitable deed must be done as a duty which man owes to man, so that it conveys no idea of the superiority of the giver or the inferiority of the receiver. Love of Almighty God should be the motive of all charitable deeds so that the very doing of them fosters the feeling that all mankind is but a single family. Only good things and well-earned money should be given in charity.

Charity has value only if something good and valuable is given, which has been honourably earned or acquired by the giver or which is produced in nature and can be referred to as bounty of Almighty God.

These may include such things as are of use and value to others though they many be of less use to us or superfluous to us on account of our having acquired something more suitable for our station in life, for example discarded clothes, or an old horse or used motor car. But if the horse is vicious, or the car engine is so far gone that it is dangerous to use, then the gift is worse than useless — it is positively harmful, and the giver is doing a wrong. It applies to fraudulent company promoters, who earn great credit by giving away in charity some of their ill-gotten gains, or to robbers (even if they call themselves by high sounding names).

Charitable deeds may be carried out openly or secretly, although the latter form is better. Those who do not beg should be the first to receive charity.

Obligatory charity is generally mentioned under the name of Zakat. The word Zakat is derived from Zaka, which means it (a plant) grew. The word Zakat is also used in the sense of purity from sin.

Zakat is wealth which is taken from the rich and given to the poor, being so called because it make the wealth grow, or because the giving away of wealth is a source of purification. In fact, both these reasons hold true. The giving away of wealth to the poor members of the community, while, no doubt, a source of blessing to the individual, also increases the wealth of the community as a whole. At the same time it purifies the heart of the giver, ridding it of the inordinate love of wealth, which brings numerous sins in its train. The holy Prophet himself has described Zakat as wealth “which is taken from the rich and returned to the poor”.

The two commandments, to keep up prayer and to give Zakat, often go together, and this combination of the two is met within the earliest chapters of the Holy Quran as well in those, which were revealed towards the end of the holy Prophet’s life. Not only are prayer and charity mentioned together in a large number of passages but these two are also treated as being the basic ordinances of the religion of Islam.

Khwaja Mohammed Zubair is former Khaleej Times staffer