Sunday, July 12, 2015

Juma-tul-Wida at the Islamic Center of Baltimore


By Nadrat Siddique

 

I made the juma'ah prayers at ISB (Islamic Center of Baltimore) today. Recall that this is one of the government's flagship masajid, replete with DHS cameras and whatnot (unfortunately not unusual for many monied mosques today). I hadn't been there in a while.

 

 ISB is not a poor mosque to begin with. It is valued at $813,000. An SDAT real estate search revealed that $675,000 of this is in improvements done by the mosque association after it was purchased. So clearly, some individuals associated with the mosque have money, and lots of it.

 

That made it all the more surprising that the mimbar would be used for well hitting up you and I for a lil cash. Much of the second half of the khutbah was a fundraising pitch for the grandiose mosque. On the prestigious occasion of Juma-tul-Wida, Part 2 of the khutbah had the tone of an auction (or the lead in to one, in any event). The real "auction" was the next day, when ISB would have their annual fundraising dinner, into which, said the imam, they ordinarily invested $30,000 to $40,000 for the dinners served to the guests.

 

The khutbah ended with the imam invoking du'ah for various members of the congregation who were ill. That was understandable, I thought. After all, these brothers and sisters are part of the masjid community (and even if they weren't, they are part of the ummah).

 

But it was the imam's final du'ah that almost made me fall over. He asked the congregants to pray for Governor Larry Hogan. Hogan, he said, was also “sick,” referring to the Maryland Governor’s recent cancer diagnosis. “And Hogan, being the leader of Maryland, is our leader, too,” continued the imam. “May Allah give him health and hikma (wisdom)," said the imam.

 

I was flabbergasted. The imam was praying for a kaffir, out of the pulpit which ideally ought emulate that of the Rasool (SAW). I'm not an Islamic scholar, but I don't believe the Rasool ever made du'ah for kaffirs out of the pulpit. So it was quite out of line, it would seem.

 

On top of it all, imam sahib was praying for a man who had just weeks prior called the National Guard on Black youth in Baltimore, risking a blood bath. He labeled and blackballed them as "thugs," "criminals," and "rioters" because they had the gaul to stand up against police brutality. And about a week after the Baltimore Uprising (termed "Riots" by corporate media and government), he rescinded $11 million dollars in educational funds from those youth (a total of $68 million was rescinded from Maryland schools in toto). So, Hogan is hardly someone who is aligned with the oppressed.

 

And our imam couldn't find anyone else to pray for? This is a sad, sad commentary on us as an Ummah.