Skip to main content

‘Let My Building Burn, Justice Needs to Be Served’: Muslim Restaurant Owner

The death of George Floyd, an unarmed and handcuffed black man, has triggered nights of protests and violence across the US

There are reports of hundreds of businesses being damaged or looted during four days of unrest.

Among these businesses is the Gandhi Mahal Restaurant owned by a Bangladeshi Muslim migrant.

Ruhel Islam, who immigrated to the US 24 years ago, woke up on Friday morning to discover that his family business had been razed to the ground.

📚 Read Also: African American Muslims React to the Police Killing of George Floyd

When he found out, his daughter, Hafsa Islam, said he only had one response: “Let my building burn. Justice needs to be served and those officers need to be put in jail,” Times of India reported.

“We can rebuild a building, but we cannot rebuild a human,” said Ruhul Islam, 42. “The community is still here, and we can work together to rebuild.”

  • Ruhel Islam standing on the rooftop of what is left of his restaurant, the Gandhi Mahal.

During the protests, Hafsa said the family transformed their restaurant into a safe haven for injured protesters who needed aid.

“We were worried about business, of course, but we were more worried about the protesters,” she told CNN.

“All of Tuesday and Wednesday we took in hundreds of injured people. By Thursday night, it felt too dangerous to be there.”

Despite the loss of their business, Hafsa said they were standing in support of protesters and their cause.

“This isn’t about the business, this is about us. This is about George Floyd and all of the people whose lives have been taken wrongfully because of police brutality.

“We are fighting for justice in such an unjust system,” she added.

Muslims Demand Justice

US Muslims have expressed outrage and hurt, as the video surfaced on various different social media outlets. 

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said his group teamed up with other civil rights organizations to host a rally and march in downtown Minnesota on Thursday.

“We are all in pain as we watch our cities burn. However, our leaders still refuse to acknowledge that this unrest is occurring because of their failure to immediately arrest and charge all four officers involved in the murder of George Floyd,” he said in a statement sent to AboutIslam. 

“Where there is no justice, there will be no peace. We need the governor to empower the state attorney general to bring charges against the remaining three officers, who should be held without bail pending trial. 

“Justice delayed is justice denied. White supremacists, anarchists and other bad actors are the only ones benefiting from the chaos resulting from delayed justice.”

CAIR-Minnesota has also called for the arrest of all Minneapolis police officers involved in the killing of George Floyd.

That demand came following the arrest of Derek Chauvin, the officer who was seen on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck.

The post ‘Let My Building Burn, Justice Needs to Be Served’: Muslim Restaurant Owner appeared first on About Islam.



source https://aboutislam.net/muslim-issues/n-america/let-my-building-burn-justice-needs-to-be-served-muslim-restaurant-owner/
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

List of Times and Places Where Dua is Accepted

A short reminder regarding the recommended times of dua . And I think what you need to know here is that the recommended times of dua or recommended things that can cause your dua to be accepted, can be divided into two sort of large groups: Am I Good Enough to Make Dua for Myself? Situations where your dua is accepted. Times where your dua is accepted So I’m going to very briefly mention them one after the other as much as possible. As for situations where your dua has been accepted: – The person who has been wronged or oppressed . – A person who finds themselves in severe difficulty after a calamity has struck. – The person who is traveling. – Someone who is fasting. – The one who is reciting the Quran or has just recited the Quran – Someone who is performing Hajj or Umrah or jihad. – The one who is making dua for someone in their absence . Because we know that when you make dua for someone in his absence an angel says: “ Ameen and to you”. – A person...
Post a Comment
Read More »

Ghuraba (The Strangers): Nasheed with English Subtitles

Islam began as something strange, and it shall return to being something strange, so give glad tidings the strangers. (Sahih Muslim 145) This famous nasheed has many versions; this one is from Muhammad al-Salman and has the subtitles in English embedded. [We are] strangers and we do not bow the foreheads to anyone besides Allah  […] Transliteration to help in the pronounciation:  Ghurabaa’ wa li ghairillaahi laa nahnil jibaa Aisha Stacey  wrote in an article for Aboutislam.net : “I think that many of you would agree that being Muslim in the 21st century makes you well acquainted with being strange. It might even be a metaphor for random, as in you have been randomly selected. […] many converts to Islam will tell you about feeling as if they were strangers, before finding Islam. They will speak of feeling that they belonged somewhere else that their lives were just slightly off center. They often speak about a vague sense of knowing they were not like everyone else...
Post a Comment
Read More »

Taqwa – Living the Main Purpose of Ramadan

Taqwa is a major purpose for the month of Ramadan. The people of taqwa are those who do the things that they are commanded and avoid the things which Allah has made prohibitive. And evidently, to reach a state of taqwa requires vigilance, it requires patience and sincerity. The verse is pertaining to fasting I found in a single set of verses in chapter 2 starting at verse 183: O you who have believed, decreed upon you is fasting as it was decreed upon those before you that you may become righteous. ( 2:183 ) A Collective Act of Worship Allah is telling us that fasting has been made obligatory and then Allah tells us that just as it was prescribed for those before us. We often get asked this question in Ramadan, “how’s the fast going for us?” And if we gave ourselves a moment to think about it, we see that Allah Most High has made the fast inside the month of Ramadan easy for us because we know that there is a collective spirit to fasting; we know that we’re not alone in this ...
Post a Comment
Read More »