And sure enough as irony would have it, we had a delegation of Muslims who actually were invited to the Australian embassy during the month of Ramadan to meet with the ambassador and his staff in Washington DC. And my son went along and if you know about 8 year-olds, they don’t like to get dressed up and they certainly don’t like little old ladies pulling their cheeks and telling them how cute they are. And so, this was taking place with my son and finally when she asked him how old he was and what school he went to. She then asked him: "And what does your dad do?" "Oh my dad, he is a professional agitator."

So as with all professional agitators, I am really glad to be here tonight. Having as I indicated earlier, traveled some 19 hours by plane I’m a little jet lagged and I know that when you come to fundraisers it becomes very difficult and the speaker takes long. So I feel obligated to make to you the pledge that Elizabeth Taylor made to all her husbands: "This won’t be long."

I like to say first of all, I’m very pleased to see the title or the theme for the conference this year because it is certainly an appropriate theme "Muslims Under Siege." I like the theme also because I have been to so many conferences where the theme has no relevance as to why people have gathered.

I’ve been to conferences where it was on the other side of the crescent, like "Where we stand before the minaret in peace moving toward ijtihaad." What the heck is that? So it’s great to be able to be here under a theme which is very relevant and very salient to our conditions today. "Muslims Under Siege."

And I’d like also to note that the theme doesn’t have a question mark, obviously there is no sense of denial. Here people understand that indeed Islam is under siege.

I would like to say in my own country, examining Islam and the current status in the post 9/11 environment, it often reminds me of the Charles Dicken novel, "The tales of two cities," where it says in its opening statement "it is the best of times, yet it’s the worse of times." And in many respects this really reflects our reality now in the US and throughout the Muslim world, the best of times yet the worst of times. It reflects also within my own country a tremendous contradiction, which we are dealing with, when it comes to dealing with Islam both within the US and outside the US. A tremendous contradiction.

I think that one of the great founders of America, Thomas Jefferson, who was the architect of the Declaration of Independence, who penned these marvellous words: "that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men, (and people who are politically correct, and women), are created equal. And endowed by their Lord with certain inalienable rights – life, liberty and pursuit of happiness." Yet, even though Thomas Jefferson was able to articulate and to offer those lofty ideas, those lofty words, he was still grappling with a contradiction even then in America. Because as he talked about all men and women being equal, women could not vote, and he owned African slaves and certainly they were not equal and they did not have life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Which forced him to pen something else. In retrospect I think when he looked at the contradictions, of talking about liberty and justice, and then at the same time he was a slave holder and had children of Africa in bondage and treated like chattel animals, he wrote something else too, very profound: "I tremble for my nation, when I think that God is just." "I tremble for my nation, when I think that God is just."

And I too tremble for my native country when I think that God is just as relates to application of justice to Muslims. I tremble for my nation when in my own country, when men leave to go out to work and then they are picked up by the immigration bureau and no one can find them. No one knows where they are. And they are shuffled from one centre to another and even their lawyers can’t find them, even though they have a right to be in consultation with an attorney. I tremble for my nation.

I tremble for my nation when I see that we have a society where the recourses needed for health care and the benefit of the human conditions of its own citizens both here in my country and around the world, are needed, yet we will spend billions of dollars on smart bombs to drop in Iraq. A dumb mission if I may add with smart bombs. Yet we cannot address the human conditions of poverty and deprivation that faces our own societies. I tremble for my nation.

I tremble for my nation when there is a justice system where the rich get bailed and sailed and the poor get jailed and hailed. I tremble for my nation.

I tremble for my nation when I see that indeed there is a concentrated effort to have an uneven policy when it relates to the issue of Palestine. I tremble for my nation when there is such a stirring of the understanding of the humanity of Palestinians that the tears of a Palestinian mother is not as bad as the tears of an Israeli mother. I tremble for my nation as long as we have that condition and we are not willing to stand for and try to treat them all with the compassion and the healing atonement of justice. I tremble for my nation.

So indeed the issue today, brothers and sisters, is indeed the issue of justice. Whether it is trembling for my nation in America or trembling in Australia, or trembling anywhere on the planet earth, the issue for every Muslim has always been justice. Why? Because Allah demands that we stand for justice. Even if it is against ourselves. This is a moral and spiritual imperative. We have no option other than to stand for justice. Allah has said, "He has set the scales of justice high in the firmament in order that human beings should not transgress; therefore, establish just weights and fall not short in the balance." And the Arabic world used is mizaan, a sense of proportionality and balance and fairness.

But this is not the type of justice that we are looking for. We are looking for justice that really reflects the justice that Allah has required from us. We found ourselves faced with something called the Patriot Act in America. I understand that you have something similar here in Australia, where new laws have curtailed some of your civil liberties and civil rights because of the so-called necessity of fighting terrorism.

Washington is famous for its acronyms, so the US Patriot Act actually stands for "Uniting and strengthening America by providing appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct terrorism act, Oct 26 2001." Now that’s a mouthful and I’m certain that dear president George Bush would have a very difficult time saying all of that so they decided to call it the "Patriot Act."

I would like just to spend a little bit more time, talking about what do we do? We seem to know the problem. We seem to know that wherever we go we are having problems. It seems as if our commanders-in-chiefs or prime ministers, whether it’s George Bush, Mr. Howard or Tony Blair, all of a sudden, the weapons of mass destruction has become weapons of mass deception.

We can’t find them! The information was false, yet I heard your Prime Minister say that the "Intelligence Community are certainly doing their job" and that indeed in good time he is certain that "the prevailing concerns will prevail." Yeah Right! It sounds like the saying as I was telling the brother at the table earlier: "it is the same soup, different bowl." Because you hear the same thing in Washington DC and you hear the same thing in the UK.

But in reality we have different problems that we are facing as it relates to Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, and as it relates to Muslims residing in their own countries. Like here in Australia where I understand the new law allows the detention for a certain period of days and they wanted the age of 14 but didn’t get it quite that low. Well what we do reminds me of a story that I was once told. It’s a story about a boy who was travelling in the UK and he was from America and when he was travelling he found this extraordinary bird. This bird had a brilliant array of all different types of colours of the rainbow and more fascinating was that it could speak nine different languages. The bird was quite expensive so the boy purchased the bird and he sent it back home to his mother in America from the UK with a note saying: "Mother, here is an extraordinary bird. Please except it as a gift from your loving son, I’ll be home soon." Allah delayed him in the UK quite some time and he returned right around the Christian celebration of Christmas. There he was happy to see his mother and they embraced each other in a loving way and they exchanged their greetings and the chit chat of the day and finally he could not resist by asking: "My dear mother, what did you think of that wonderful bird that I sent you, how is that bird?" She said: "Oh! The bird son. The bird was delicious." He said: "Mother! You ate the bird? I paid an exorbitant price for the bird, it was beautiful in colour but more importantly, spoke nine different languages." So his mother said: "Well son, it didn’t say anything."

So what is the moral of the story? The moral of the story is when it comes to injustice, when it comes to the vilification of Islam, when it comes to the treatment we will receive within the society, if we don’t say anything, if we are silent, then much like that bird we will be eaten. We will be eaten by bigotry. We will be eaten by the misinformation about Islam to the non-Muslims in the greater society. We will be eaten by religious bigotry. We will be eaten by political opportunism.

If we go into denial, if we try to act just like a hostage and stick our heads in the sand — we will indeed be targets. It is kind of interesting about the ostrich, because the ostrich will stick its head in the sand and yet its backside is still exposed.

There is no way of getting around it brothers and sisters, we have to be acting within the greater society, in which Allah (swt) had placed us. Oh I know, I hear the excuses, "well I’m just here temporally and I’m going home soon." How often have we heard that? I hear it all the time in the US. "We just came here to make some money and then we are going to go home." Stop the madness, most of us are not going anywhere. We are here, whether it’s here in Australia, whether it’s here in the UK, whether it’s in America, you are not going anywhere. We made these places that we migrated to our homes. ... So we might as well get busy where Allah (swt) has placed us. If it’s in Australia we need to get busy in Australia and try to make sure that we are actively engaged as Muslims fulfilling the commands of Allah, i.e. "to enjoin that which is good and forbid that which is bad."

Allah (swt) didn’t send Prophet Muhammad (s) just to the Muslims, but he send him as a mercy to all of humankind. Therefore, our efforts and our resources should be for all of humanity. I think we realize that we have to build a grass root movement. I think it is important that we continue the struggle for our brothers and sisters throughout the Muslim world, continue to contribute to the charity work. But let’s talk tactical realities. Tactical reality is if you can’t affect the very laws that impact your own Masjid, within your own community, if you have no power there, what power will you have in the area of foreign policy as it relates to Palestine, Afghanistan or other places in the Muslim world? Therefore, we must look at where we are and make sure that we build a strong, firm, grass root movement right within the society where we live, on the local level. I think it’s critically important.

We have to look also at outreach, building coalitions with others. I know that in America we have been very successful in terms of reaching out and building coalitions both within the religious community and outside the religious community.

I’m going to say this then I’m going to sit down but I really want to emphasis the importance of coalition building. I think that there is value in interfaith work but I’ll contend that everybody can’t do interfaith work, but yet it needs to be done.

Interfaith work reminds me very much with prison Dawah. If everybody entered prison Dawah some would wind up in prison. So I think we have to really understand that there is a "knack" for this thing called interfaith work. We have three paradigms and usually we fall into extremes. The one paradigm, over to my left, are people who want to deal with interfaith but usually they want to enter you "into-faith", usually their faith. Therefore the dialog begins like this: "Yes I think it’s wonderful that you have a book like this called the Quran. I think the Quran is a wonderful book but you see this is the book and unless you wash in the blood of Lord Jesus," and it goes on and on and usually there is a strike and competition between the two faiths or different faith traditions. I call that the confrontational model.

But just as dangerous as the confrontational, is the other model. I call it the "Combayaa" model, the Shirley Mclain kind of "touchy feely" model. It goes like this: "Oh we are all the same, there is no difference, God made us all, lets hold hands, we are the world," and that model is just as ridicules. No! We are not the same. I’m not the same as a Christian. I don’t believe in the trinity. I don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God (astagfirullah). I don’t believe that Allah (swt) can be depicted in human form or in any anthropomorphic way. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe in the original sin. So therefore, we don’t believe in the same theological matters "Lakum Deenakum Wa liya Deen."

That is where I am, but at the same time I do believe that the hungry should be fed. My Islamic moral ethics said that we should take care of those who have needs, do you believe that? Great we can work together. I do believe that justice is a mandate for all human beings, so, if you believe that, fine! We can work together. I do believe that there should be a sense of morality in the society and gambling and drugs and pornography and all these other vices in the society should be eliminated, we should strive to have decency within the society. I believe in moral decency, if you believe that, we have it in common. But No! We are not the same, but we have some same issues we can stand on together - that brings people together.

In conclusion, let me just say this, that we should not really worry too much and we should spend less time worrying and more time working. Let me repeat that, we should spend less time worrying and more time working. For anything that we are facing today it’s merely a test from Allah (swt). After all Allah says: "Did you not think that you will be tested?" So this is a test.

Since 911 all of a sudden the whole world has changed itself based on 911. But let me tell you as a Muslim, as an African-American, and also as a descendant of the Native Americans on my mother’s side, terrorism didn’t start on S11. We have known terrorism in America all of our lives. Native America has known terrorism all of their lives, the African-Americans were brought as slaves to work in America - they have known terrorism all their lives. So this idea for some reason that the word terrorist began on S11 is a fallacy; it’s a falsehood.

But we are faced with a tremendous onslaught as a result of S11 because it was an opportunity for those who are not pleased with the Islamic movement, those who are not pleased with Islam, those who would wish to vilify us and to degrade us, and to talk about our religion in the most negative way. So my advice to the Muslims here and my advice to the Muslims of the world, is the advice given by Allah (swt), who says to us: "Hold onto the rope of Allah (swt) together and be not divided." And we must understand that "Allah never changes a condition of a people until they change that which is within themselves."