This past Ramadan, Community Organizer Seemab Hussaini caught up with NBA legend and racial justice advocate Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. As an NBA star, Abdul-Rauf gained fame after refusing to stand for The Star-Spangled Banner and opting to pray silently. This sparked controversy, and Abdul-Rauf was fined each game, eventually costing him his future. In the NBA, Mahmoud was vocal about racial justice before it became a hashtag. And he continues to stand for justice through his work on and off the court.
Read a shortened version of their conversation below. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity
Seemab Hussaini, Community Organizer: How did you find Islam?
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf: That's a great question. I grew up in Mississippi seeing a lot of things, and a young man I had questions which were not always fulfilled. I grew up as a Baptist and when I finally got to LSU, Dale Brown, my head coach, gave me the autobiography of Malcolm X. I'd never heard of Malcolm up to that point. I look back on that, being where I am now at 53, and I think to myself, man, Allah is truly the best of planners. Malcolm X and his life fascinated me and everything just began to take shape with all the questions that I had, the life that I was trying to live.
I read that book, and one thing led to another. I'm drafted in the NBA and I meet a friend and we began to talk and Islam came up in conversation, and he told us where we can go get the Koran, so we went to the masjid. I drove back, just so excited because I'd never seen the Koran and opened two or three pages. And what was in those pages, I said, 100% that this was for me, I looked across the table and I said, I don't know about you, but my search is over. I'm going to be a Muslim. And that's where I started. Mash'Allah.
Seemab What was it like knowing that you had to take a stand for your faith and then getting recognized for that with negative attention?
Abdul-Rauf: My best education came after I became a Muslim. Being on the road as an athlete, people know I'm Muslim, so I'm coming into the hotels and people are greeting me and people are on the corner screaming as-salaam alaikum, turning around. I began to have conversations. Every city I went to, people had expertise in different subjects.
And they started introducing me to books and authors that I'd never heard of. I'm now on a roll during and after Ramadan of reading and then having conversations, having dialogs and coming across things that I've never known, that I've never come across because my life has been consumed with basketball right?
I'm coming across verses that say things like, "stand up for justice even if it's against your own self and your parents." And there's this tone in the Koran, that everything is directing you towards justice. Right? Personal justice, collective justice. I'm reading these stories about the prophets and I'm learning about different historical figures.
Now these are beginning to become the people that I admire way more than when I was young, admiring the Dr. J's, all of those athletes. I read this verse among other things I've come across, the verse will enjoin good and forbid evil and all of that. And then the verse where Allah says don't be like a donkey with books on your back, you got all this information, now what you going to do with it?
I began to say, you know what, man? I can't just sit on this information, and I just can't be comfortable with not sharing it, you know? It started to produce a courage in me that I never had before.
Seemab How can organizations like CAIR Washington better protect brothers and sisters who are taking a stand against injustices?
Abdul-Rauf: By continuing to do what they do. I mean, advocating, being relentless in the pursuit of protecting the rights of Muslims, having genuine voices. CAIR has a history of seeking out those issues, homing in on them, and addressing them. And so just constantly being relentless and genuine, keeping Allah first, listening to the voices on the street as well, finding the right-minded people with that similar passion.
Seemab How important do you think it is to have civil rights representations for Muslims?
Abdul-Rauf: It's necessary. You know, Islam is not just about one's physical responsibilities. It's about collective responsibilities.
Allah tells us: "You won't change the condition of a people until you change within yourself." But as one imam said, you won't change your society until you change your societal self. CAIR-WA focuses on the collective society so that, Insha'Allah, our rights are protected, so that people can live a life without unnecessary hindrances, and feel free, and navigate through life, healthy. Because of all of the things that Muslims are going through globally and domestically, CAIR-WA is necessary. We can't survive without it. We can't, there's no way. We need organizations like this.
Watch their conversation here
Pre-order Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf's book In the Blink of An Eye from Kaepernick Publishing here