Imam Yahya
A Muslim reading articles or watching Islamic videos online cannot go far without running into the name of Imam Yahya/John Ederer. This young man has made waves in the global ummah and has touched the lives of people worldwide with his fresh, invigorating viewpoints. At age 35, married with two kids; it’s remarkable that he has found time since his 1998 embrace of Islam to become one of the best known names among American Imams; so it was with a great deal of excitement that Carolina Muslims got to sit down with the Imam and have a conversation.
John’s warm smile and energetic handshake set the pace for our meeting; with a friendly greeting that makes him seem to be the stranger of no-one, talking to him was like speaking with an old friend. After some brief introductions and light conversation, we got right down to asking the questions that we felt you, the readers, would want to know.
You know, there are so many brief bios out there about you in various websites that go over the basics of how you were born and raised in Oklahoma and that you embraced Islam in 1998, but can you talk about the specific trigger point for you in coming to Islam?
In a nutshell, the people I hung around with at the age of 18 were not moral at all and I was having kind of a moral dilemma. See, I felt an attachment to God but I couldn’t reconcile that with the people I was hanging around. So I decided to research through comparisons of scriptural basis of most religions. Through this comparison I became somewhat of a Universalist, believing that there is truth in everything, that God is one and people have just interpreted his reality in different ways.
Then, after some time, I met a Pakistani gentleman at a restaurant and he was arguing to me the Islamic theology and he challenged me to go read it for myself because he felt that I was already inclining toward it. He thought I was weird! He said “So you don’t believe that Jesus is God?” I said “No!” He said “you don’t believe he is the son of God?” and I reasoned “well metaphorically we are all children of God and obviously the prophets would be the holiest.” then he replied “That sounds a lot like Islam!” and I countered “No it’s not, this is the Bible!”
So because of this interaction I bought a copy of the Qur’an and it clicked for me within 5-6 pages of Surah al-Baqara. I immediately felt that all my moral, theological and philosophical dilemmas were being systematically answered in such a way that I knew that this is not the work of some random guy writing a book. So I embraced Islam! Obviously from reading the Qur’an I knew that God is One and that his final messenger was Muhammad; but what’s interesting is that I spent a year and a half believing that and doing the best I could in the environment that I was in to practice that and live that and then I met other Muslims who said “You need to take Shahadah!” and I said “What’s a Shahadah?” and they said “To declare that there is only One God and Muhammad is his Messenger” I said “I’ve been declaring that for a year and a half now, what are you talking about?” That was the beginning of my confusion as a Muslim between religion and culture; it became a difficult thing to decipher.
I’m glad you brought that up because you brought up the confusion of culture and religion in the article from last month’s issue of Carolina Muslims, you hit on key issues of Muslim-American identity among the children of Muslim-American immigrants; do you see similar identity issues among converts?
Yes, it’s the same thing. Converts and children of immigrants both have cultural identity issues. Because unintentionally the immigrant communities have thrust this on them, not meaning any harm and obviously not trying to create a problem but just because they themselves are often confused about what part is culture and what is religion, not knowing what the difference is. Because of this issue, the youth and converts tend to develop two personalities, one in front of the immigrant community and one among their peers.
So in that dual personality that you’ve seen people embrace have you seen this sort of duality cause children to fall away from Islam? If so, what sort of advice do you give to youth or converts?
Yes. The reality is quite similar, but the answer is quite different.
The advice to the convert is that in your situation you’ve got to take a much deeper look into the scholarly interpretation of the scriptures. It is more important for you than others so that you can formulate your identity in a way that is compatible with scripture but so that it’s not based on someone else’s culture. You can decipher and, with your interaction with other Muslims, you’ll have the evidence and basis for your position and the ability to argue your identity. If you don’t have that basis to argue your position then they would easily say “You’re just Americanizing Islam!” unless you can use knowledge to show them how you are Islamically Americanizing your Islam.
I would say to the youth that you have to respect your family’s traditions. The convert doesn’t have to necessarily respect but he must tolerate, however the youth must respect it as this is Islamic it’s the sunnah of the Prophet to have family ties and to respect your parents and your family culture so long as it doesn’t contradict with Islam.
I like how you’re explaining that, so that both are doing two different things for the same purpose, both in upholding Islam. One is upholding Islam by maintaining his family tradition and one is upholding Islam by not embracing what would be, to him, a foreign culture.
Yeah, and it wouldn’t fit, it wouldn’t be the future of Islam in America, it would just be an extension of Pakistani or Egyptian or whatever cultural relation with Islam. Islamic legal juristic discussion on this issue is so huge, and when I sat with scholars overseas (which we don’t have many of in America) and I would seek advice from them they encouraged me with what I’m doing here on this issue.
What do you feel is the most important aspect of Fiqh that Muslim-Americans need to keep at heart?
It would be the understanding of richness and versatility. When you study the Usul al-Fiqh and the various Madhabs, we see that scholars are, firstly, deep and secondly that they are relevant to their society.
For instance, it’s well documented that Imam Shafri changed his opinions during his own life as a scholar from Iraq to Egypt and it wasn’t because he learned something new that proved his old opinion wrong, but rather as he indicated, the reality on the street and the customs of the people that pushes him in a direction to give a different conclusion in the matter. So that is the richness and versatility within Islam which makes Islam “modernity capable.” Even though other religions feel the need to completely reform and compromise the scripture and the core of their beliefs to fit into modernity, in Islam we merely need to revise our understandings of the concepts based on scripture that will be more relevant to our reality here rather than somewhere else.
What is the biggest challenge that you personally face as the leader of a community?
Our dynamic is helping the community at large to see modern relevance in Islam. It is in helping the parents understand how their kids can integrate and still be devout. We are also trying to encourage the young generation to take leadership.
We have young men and women sitting on our board, and we have 50-60 year olds that have latched on to this vision and message in what we’re doing.
Therefore, the biggest focus and dilemma in my community is in trying to enable the parents to see the future of Islam here in America, and for kids to see modern relevance.
What would you say is the greatest challenge for the national Muslim-American community?
The American Muslim community needs to develop a national cooperative organization with native leadership that works together across schools of thought for the future of the unity and stability of American Muslims.
In dealing with all of this, the challenges and bridging the gap between traditionalist and modernist, how do you stay focused, energized and motivated on a daily basis?
Obviously the first thing is my connection with God and knowing what he’s done for me in my life and what he’s done for me up to this point and knowing there is no limit on that.
I also feel a huge sense of responsibility because there’s not as much work being done as I know needs to be done for the work of Islam in America. Additionally, the Anti-Islam movement actually fuels me and motivates me to respond and to work harder.
You’ve challenged many controversial topics in your articles. Topics such as the validity of non-Arabic prayer, the permissibility of music, the position of women as leaders in our community and even a film review of “Noah” that you did turned to controversy! Do you intentionally go after hot button issues to stir up discussion or are these merely topics that you feel are important and they just happen to generate controversy?
I know these are things that people have established a customary understanding. There is the religious culture of many Muslims and they’ve made some things rigid in belief, but when you actually study the scholarship about these things you end up finding a very strong argument in favor of the other side. In many cases that strong argument on the other side validates so many people’s spiritual comfort and it validates their Islam. This makes their Islam authentic and it doesn’t make Islam seem too strict and rigid.
What people need to really get across about what I’m doing is that I’m not bringing anything from myself. None of these things have I talked about from my opinion; I am expressing and emphasizing an opinion that has impressed me with its validity despite almost public consensus against it. The whole underlying purpose is to show that Islam is not embraced as a deep, rich condition; but that it has been controlled by the culture of people. I’ve learned that MY culture has ways to relate to Islam that are reviving aspects of Islam that have been suppressed in the modern Muslim country cultures.
I’m helping to take part in building, with the help of God, the authentic American Islamic Identity that will facilitate the most Muslims to flourish within Islam. This is, of course, according to historical legal tradition; not according to the whims of Washington or the Modernity Movement. No! We’re not listening to them at all. We’re listening to the people on the street, and we’re looking to the scripture and the legal tradition to validate the way they naturally feel and incline.
Insh’allah, may Allah continue to bless and guide Imam John (Yahya) in his quest to unify and bring about the unique Muslim-American cultural identity.
