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"Riots" by corporate media and government), he rescinded $11 million
dollars in educational funds from those youth (a total of $68 million was rescinded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.
