And a "profiling" indicator. Bruce A lesson lies in Jihad Muqtasid's first name
What often seemed to define my friend Jihad Muqtasid were the outward struggles of his life. He once told me, for example, about growing up sharecropping in Mississippi and having a white man force him to swallow plugs of chewing tobacco. But when he died last week, I learned, as is true with most of us, that Jihad measured his life by his internal struggles. For most of the time I knew him, I wondered how, with a childhood so pocked by hate, he maintained such a sweet spirit. How, with only a third-grade education for most of his life, he read voraciously -- enough to be conversant in politics, religion, history or music. And, finally, why this gentle man would choose for himself a name that to so many means "holy war"? Not long after hearing he'd died, I looked for more about the meaning of his name. I found from a number of sources that the first definition of jihad is not war. It has a broader connotation encompassing every kind of religious striving. I read at the History News Network's Web site that a few years ago, the Harvard faculty asked a graduating senior named Zayed Yasin to speak at the school's commencement. The title of Yasin's speech, "My American Jihad," drew concern, but as a past president of the Harvard Islamic Society, he confronted those concerns. Yasin was quoted on the Web site as saying that jihad in its purest form "is the determination to do right, to do justice even against your own interests. It is an individual struggle for personal moral behavior." That struggle, he said, exists on many levels, from public service to social justice. "On a global scale, it is a struggle involving people of all ages, colors, and creeds, for control of the Big Decisions: not only who controls what piece of land, but more importantly who gets medicine, who can eat." After I read that, the symbolism of Jihad's name became clear. He "believed that one's name should have meaning, because when you call someone by their name, you invoke the spirit or meaning in the name," said his daughter, Maaskelah Thomas, whose first name means "light from God." Though he didn't name her Maaskelah, he often bestowed names on the many young men he knew. "He would look for names that either celebrated what he saw in them, or challenged them to enhance those things that he thought would make them better, stronger human beings," Thomas said. Anyone who spent any time with Jihad knew about his search for self-awareness and his sense of public service and justice. He inspired many people to find the same sense of redemption, peace and purpose he'd found in reading. That's why he opened his bookstore, Iqraa African American Books and Gifts, near Grove on 13th Street. Even that was a struggle. Facing financial hardships, he kept the doors open longer than he should have because of what he hoped the store could do to raise the social conscience of the people he wanted to reach. It closed in 1998 after nine years. If more black people read books like "Before the Mayflower" or "Miseducation of the Negro," maybe they could find the hope they were looking for, he told me that year. Jihad managed to find a sense of peace in a turbulent world, and he helped others find beauty in their workaday lives. I will miss his warm smile and the way he hugged me and called me "brother." He greeted everyone the way a grandfather gobbles up grandchildren he hasn't seen in a year. And thinking of him now, I understand better not just the symbolism of his name, but also the depth of his faith. Jihad does have a deeper meaning. And so did the man. http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/local/15336366.htm?template=contentMod ules/printstory.jsp [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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