Dearest Usuli Community,
Salam alaykum, May God’s peace and blessings be with you. I pray that our
beloved
month of Ramadan is filled with joy, love and fulfillment for you and all your
loved ones. You are all very dear to me and to all of us at Usuli. I cannot
express how much your ongoing support means to us. It is most heartwarming to
receive your letters or
comments on our material. Your encouragement means the world to me, and I pray
that we at Usuli can continue to play a positive role in your life. May Allah
bless you all and reward you immensely in this life and the hereafter. I am
certainly remembering you in my prayers in this holy month.
There is a lot to be overwhelmed about in the world these days. Palestine and
Sudan
continue to suffer unrelenting genocides, and the darkness of fascism and
corruption
seem unabating, and the specter of yet another devastating war haunts the
Muslim
world. We all try to keep a brave attitude and help where we can, but I know
that the
darkness of it all is weighing upon all of us. It is hard to feel hopeful most
of the time.
Coupled with our own challenges, whether it be our mental health, the demands
of our jobs, making ends meet, familial trials and tribulations, it can all
feel quite overwhelming.
Personally, I’ve had quite a challenging time since October of last year. My
beloved life partner moved to New York for the year to manage her team of
attorneys at her
immigration law firm in person; she had been doing so remotely and traveling as
needed. Since the Trump administration took office, her life has grown
progressively
chaotic. Jana is an incredible attorney who specializes in asylum law and
manages to
win some of the most difficult cases imaginable for asylum seekers from the
Muslim
world. I called to check up on her after the Friday sermon this week and I
could tell that she had been crying. This year, under the Trump Administration,
the Department of Homeland Security has been denying asylum applications before
a merits hearing using something called an Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA).
One such agreement is with Uganda. These requests to block (pretermit) an
asylum case are filed right before a court hearing, claiming that the asylum
seekers should be sent to Uganda to see if they may be granted asylum there,
despite being in the US with an active asylum application, in compliance with
the law. Immigration judges can reject asylum claims without hearing evidence
or testimony from applicants, or even checking if Uganda is a safe place for
resettlement for the asylee. As of now, Jana and her firm have not been able to
successfully oppose these motions to pretermit and send asylum seekers to
places like Uganda and Honduras. When I asked her why she had been crying, she
explained to me that she had just finished advising an asylum seeker from
Sudan.
*Trigger warning*
He had been raped as a child by armed forces in Darfur. He spent the rest of
his life
working with humanitarian organizations including the UN. When the civil war
broke out in 2023, he was forced to flee Sudan as he was being targeted because
of his tribal identity. There is a mountain of evidence proving his
philanthropic work and attesting to his character. He has a preliminary hearing
coming up, but sadly Jana is anticipating that the government will likely file
a motion to pretermit his case and order him removed to Uganda under the Asylum
cooperative agreement. He has no way, given the current standard, to prove that
he will more likely than not be harmed in Uganda, so his case will be closed in
the United States without ever being heard in court. Jana had the unfortunate
task of explaining this to her client today. Naturally, the man broke down in
tears in her office, utterly devastated. If you are reading this, if you could
kindly spare him a prayer, it would be much appreciated.
I know many of you also have careers where you must deliver very bad news to
someone else, it is very hard. Typically, on a day like this, we do something
together to help ward off the feelings of helplessness like go on a walk in our
neighborhood and watch the children play in the playground of our local
elementary school. But these days we are apart, and the separation is quite
painful after many years of marriage. The house feels empty without Jana’s
presence. Our cats always sleep in her office chair, or near her pillow.
Sometimes they just stare at me with what I choose to believe are sad, cat
eyes, and I wonder whether they think I drove her away. It is very challenging.
But then I remember the stories of the people she is helping, and I remind
myself why this (comparatively) small sacrifice is worth it. Even when we
cannot successfully save someone in need, we can show them that we tried our
damnedest to help them. If I were to suffer such a fate, I imagine that would
mean the world to me; that someone cared. I wish today more than ever that I
could be there for Jana tonight to express to her that as she cares for her
Sudanese client, I too care for her and all of the pain that she is enduring
doing this work.
This brings me to another point. Last week, I was able to visit Jana in New
York. One
night we gathered with a number of her friends, all from Muslim families. As we
were
talking, the conversation somehow shifted towards abuse that they had suffered
in their homes growing up. I have known a number of these friends for years, so
I am familiar with their stories, but what was truly tragic was that this time
the others that I did not know so well were also sharing stories of trauma and
abuse. I suddenly realized that every single one of these eight friends had
suffered physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse from their parents. I don’t
mean to be a downer. I only raise this issue to make this point: our
communities and our homes are woefully void of love. How could it be that our
homes have turned into sites of abuse rather than sanctuaries of love.
As I walk around my empty, lifeless home missing my partner, I vow to be brave,
and commit myself to love. That is what my time studying with Dr. Abou El Fadl
has taught me. There is nothing more beautiful and precious than love. If you
don’t know love and you do not share love, then what do you know of Islam? What
do you know of the Qur’an? What do you know of the Prophet? What do you know of
God?
As I sit joyfully and lovingly in my pain of separation from my beloved
partner, I humbly ask you, will you join me in committing yourself to love?
Will you love those who need your love? Will you promise to love those who are
smaller and weaker than you, both within your homes and in society? Most of us
have been in a place in our lives where we really needed to be loved. In this
pain of separation there is joy, because it is in this pain that I know that my
love is real and that I have had the great privilege of having been loved.
It is with this loving heart that I turn my face towards God in hope of God’s
mercy and illumination; and there I have found the most profound love I could
ever imagine, waiting for me time and time again. I pray that in this holy
month of Ramadan you too find solace and invigoration in God’s loving embrace.
May we serve this love together faithfully, for as long as we live.
Yours Truly,
Your brother, Shayan
Shayan@usuli.org
