Come and see what everyone's talking
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[Music]
Assalam alaikum. Welcome to another
episode of the Dean Show. The Dean Show
is on location and we have a very
interesting story that I could not let
go by. So, I need to share it with you
since you're my audience and you guys
have been tuning in since the beginning.
And I'd like to thank you for all the
support
this brother. Now, I'm not going to get
into the rulings on is the beard farther
uh not if you have to grow it, you can
go to the Q&A section where we have
scholars addressing this issue. But
what's interesting is that we have a
brother who stood his ground because of
what he believed in in a very in a very
peaceful way. And he did what is called
in Islam, he did an action of jihad. He
struggled for what was right. And we're
going to talk about this today. We're
going to let this uh gentleman actually
detected uh Shukrun. Did I say it right?
Shakur Shakur.
Shakur.
And
we uh actually have his story of how he
actually came to Islam. You can also see
that on the deanshow.com.
And please go ahead tell us how this
came about and take it away. Um
I think uh it started like about in uh
1995.
In 1995 I was uh I had previously worked
undercover in an unmarked unit and um
something happened one day that I tried
to respond to a cyst officer and in
responding to assist officer there was a
manhole cover that was extended up off
of the ground. So, I took the unmarked
car and I was driving it and it went and
took out the undercarriage from the
unmarked car. The captain undoubtedly
was pissed. He said, "Listen, you know,
these guys got to go back into plain
clothes because he tore up the unmarked
car." Make a long story short, I said,
"Uh, I can't go back in. I I can't um
I could go back into the plane. I mean,
go back to uniform. But they wanted me
to shave my beard off, you know,
because you're a detective. You didn't
actually have to shave.
All detectives don't have to have I
mean, they don't have to be clean face.
You either have to have an an excuse, a
note from a doctor saying that you have
what's called pseudoiciitis,
meaning that you have a skin problem
that when you shave, or you're a
detective. So, when they put me back
into uniform, they said, "Listen, you
got to shave that beard off." I said,
"I'm not shaving my beard." They said,
"Well, if you don't shave your beard,
you're going to get fired."
So, I said, "Well, listen. You know,
Allah gave me this job, you know. I
mean, if Allah doesn't want me to be a
policeman anymore, then Allah going to
take care of me."
Now, is this what you're saying to
yourself or you're saying?
I'm saying this to myself.
Okay.
I'm saying this to myself. So, I told
him, I said, "Listen, I'm not going to
shave my beard off." They said, "Well,
if you don't shave your beard, then
they're going to fire you."
Now, this is your boss telling you this,
right? So the union contacted me and
told me that they had provided me with
an attorney and that this attorney was
going to take care of everything. So the
attorney called me up and said, "Listen,
can you come to my office? I need to
meet with you." So I came to his office
and he said, "Listen, today is a
Tuesday." He said, "You're going to need
a note from a doctor before Friday or
else they're going to fire you." So I
said, "Listen,
you know, I don't want a note from a
doctor." You know, I did that before
when I was in uniform. You know, I'm not
doing that anymore. I'm going to um, you
know, just let Allah decree what he
decrees. So he said, "Listen, I
understand all of that." He said, "But
do this for me. Just go and get a note
from the doctor." So he sent me to the
first doctor. I went to the doctor and
the doctor says, uh, it was a
dermatologist. He said, "What brings you
here?" I said, "I'm a political
refugee." He said, "What does that
mean?" I said, "My job is persecuting me
and telling me that I have to cut off my
beard. I'm a Muslim, an Orthodox Muslim,
practicing, you know, um, the principles
of what the prophet ordered me to do."
So, he said, "Don't worry about that.
I'll get around it." So, he wrote on the
note. The note said, um, "The patient
tells me that he has a long-standing
history with this problem and that he
shouldn't shave and I concur with the
patient." So, I faxed the note to the,
um, the lawyer. The lawyer got the note
and the lawyer called me back and said,
"Listen, the doctor can't say that you
have pseudo feliciitis." So, I said,
"Doc, you can't say that I have." He
said, "I can't do that." So, I said,
"Okay, he can't do that." So he said,
"Listen, you know what? Tomorrow you're
going to have to go to another doctor."
So I went to another doctor, a female
Jewish doctor. So she said, "Listen, you
know, I can't get into that either." She
said, "I'll tell you what I will do.
I'll take a biopsy of your skin, which
will buy you time that you don't have to
shave right now." So I faxed that to the
the lawyer. The lawyer said, "This is
not good." But he said, "We're going to
have to go get what's called a cause of
stay, meaning that your job can't
terminate you, you know, until we get
this stuff before a federal judge."
Lawyer called me up next week.
Um, he said, "Listen,
I mean, not next week, that week." He
said, "Listen, I'm going to have to get
you in front of a federal judge with
within a 2hour span." He says, "So be
ready when I call you to just come right
to federal court." Came to federal
court. The judge said, "Um, you know
what? I mean, what is the urgency of
getting a cause of stay today?" He said,
"Your honor, if he doesn't get a cause
of stay today, this was on a Thursday."
He said, "Tomorrow they're going to fire
him." He said, "If they fire him, I can
put him right back. So what's the
issue?" He said, "Well, your honor, we
need a cause of state." The judge said,
"Okay, I'm going to give you a cause of
stay and I'll set this matter down for a
trial." Next thing I know, we went like
maybe 3 4 months later and it came to
trial. And I'll never forget it. It was
before Judge Bissell. And Judge Bissell
was a Caucasian judge who you really
really didn't think that really
understood Muslims and Islam.
Um so the um defense attorney said,
"Listen, all right, we up next." We went
up in front of the judge and I never
forget the first question that the judge
asked him. He said, "Is he a Sunni
Muslim?" The lawyer was a Caucasian,
too. The lawyer didn't understand. He
said, "What is this?" He turned around
and said, "Are you a Sunni?" I said,
"Yeah, yeah, tell him, "Yeah, tell him
yeah." So he turned around, he said,
"Yes, your honor." He said, "Okay, then
proceed."
And he said, "Your honor, you know, I'm
representing the um police officers, two
of us. It was two of us." He said, "Um,
Farooq Abdul Aziz and Shakur Mustafa
against the state." He said, "And what
the problem is is that they're
persecuting them because they are
mandated by their religion to wear their
beards."
And he went on and gave a long, long
spill. And I tell you something, I'm not
an illiterate. I didn't understand one
word that my lawyer was saying. It was
all kind of legal jargon. I looked over
to another lawyer. I said,
and the lawyer said, next thing I know,
the judge said, "Okay, all right. I've
heard enough. I've heard enough."
When he said, "I've heard enough," he
turned to the prosecutor and said, "Mr.
prosecutor, you don't have to feed into
that rhetoric." And I said to myself,
"Oh god,
I'm done." He's telling the prosecutor,
"You don't have to feed into that
rhetoric. Present your case."
The prosecutor did the exact opposite of
what the judge told him. He started
defending himself, saying, "I'm not
persecuting Muslims. I'm not a
persecutor of Muslims." The judge said,
"Okay, that's enough. That's enough."
The judge said
that people have
religious rights. The constitution
guarantees people religious rights as
long as their religion doesn't put
people
at risk. For example, like if a person
says that his religion is the religion
of the Aztecs and they smoke pyote,
which is a hallucinagen,
a train conductor
smoking pyote would put everybody at
risk because suppose he has
hallucination that somebody's on the
track and just hit the brakes and
everybody goes and they whiplash, you
could hurt people. So he said as long as
your religion doesn't put people at risk
then people are guaranteed that freedom
that right and he ruled in our favor and
the whole courtroom that was packed with
Muslims just erupted
Allahbar and the judge didn't stop us
none because he knew that this was a
major victory. Now if somebody some of
our non-Muslim audience thinks uh can
you tell us what Allahbar so they don't
think it's some war war cry or something
it means no it means praising of God and
recognize that there's nothing greater
than God there's nothing greater than
him himself and this is what we saying
when we say Allah and we're thanking
Allah for this mighty victory because we
knew that Allah was the one who allowed
this to happen and it was a major
victory It guaranteed people in the
workplace that wherever you work at, as
long as your religion is not a danger or
a hindrance to anybody else, you have
the freedom and the right to practice
it.
Now, this also goes for Christians or
Jews.
This goes for everybody because this is
the law of the land, federal court. A
lot of people had told us had we taken
our case to state court that we probably
would have lost. Why? Because judges,
they got someplace they want to go. They
want to be a Supreme Court judge. As a
matter of fact, the second bout of this
incident, and what I mean that it was
the second bout, because the city filed
an appeal.
We went before what's called the circuit
court of appeals. Circuit court. I don't
mean why did they continue to want to
push this after
they continued it because they knew that
this was a landmark case and technically
speaking I used to be the mayor's
bodyguard the mayor of the city of
Newark Sharp James and Sharp James he
did it to punish me out of retaliation
because at one particular time he went
to a nightclub and the nightclub was all
nude women in the nightclub and he told
me go put $20 on this one of the new
women. And I looked at him and I said,
"Who you talking to?" I said, "I didn't
come here for leadership. I have
leadership. I already know what my life
and my pursuit of life is about. I'm not
blind. I'm not looking. I'm not lustful.
You know, I have direction." So he said,
"Okay, when we get back to New York, I'm
going to send you back to patrol." He
thought I was being smart, but at the
same time too, I felt like he was trying
to break me for who I am and what I
represent. So I said, well, that's why I
took the civil services exam so that I
can't be manipulated by politicians nor
anybody else. And when we came back to
New York, sure enough, he took his
detective badge from me because that's a
that's a provision. They give it to you
if you're worthy of it. He took it back,
took all the perks back and sent me back
to patrol. So now I got a 10 shield and
I'm back on patrol. And he saw me one
day and he said, "They let you wear that
there?" I said, "I had this beard when I
worked for you." And that's how it all
started. Over in the second bout, when
they sent me to the circuit court, the
court of appeals, there's a judge now
called Judge uh Alo. Alto just got
appointed recently to the Supreme Court.
I went before him, an African-American
judge and another judge. It was three
judges on the court of appeals
and the city had presented their
argument again. And they said, "Listen,
what he's doing, their case was that I
was breaking the spirit of decorum."
It's the spirit of the quorum that
police are paramililitary organization.
So everything is run like from the
director down and the policy is set and
everybody has to comply with that. If
somebody breaches that then you just
breach the whole thing. They said he's
breaking the spirit of the quorum. They
didn't try to argue the case on safety
issues saying that if somebody grabbed
me or this or that, it would have been a
weak argument anyway. And the reason why
is because I'd already been established
for years and I have numerous numerous
arrests on my record, you know. So they
couldn't present that argument. But
so you've been with the with the company
for the the
This is my 23rd year now.
You've been serving and protecting for
23 years.
Yes. So, make a long story short, at the
Court of Appeals, the black judge, I
don't remember his name, but I remember
when it was his turn to speak to the
prosecutor, he said, "Mr. Prosecutor,
he had a beard." The judge, he said,
"For sure, you're not trying to tell us
in this court that a man can't be a
professional and wear a beard." The
whole courtroom cracked up because it
was obvious here's a judge sitting there
with a beard. They went into the issue
about the presidency of the United
States. Lincoln wore a beard. You know,
they rolled in my favor. They rolled in
my favor. This was the second bout. And
you know what I thought about all of the
time going through this here? There's a
verse in the Quran that Allah says,
"Fight those who fight you." He said,
"But when they cease fighting, cease
fighting." Case fighting. I really
wanted to sue the city. And I said to
myself, "If the city cease fighting, I'm
not going to get that opportunity
because I have to obey Allah." Allah
said, "They stopped. You have to stop."
But they kept right on going. So, you
know what I did?
We went and I won on the circuit court
level. Then the city filed an appeal.
Again,
this case went all the way to the
federal level. I mean, all the way to
the Supreme Court level. And you can
Google my name, S H A K O O R
Mustafa, M U S T A F A. You can Google
that and it'll bring up the whole case
that you can see for yourself. And
alhamdulillah, when it got to the
Supreme Court level, the Supreme Court
said that they agreed with the circuit
court. They agreed with the lower courts
and that I had the right. So, it opened
up the door for me to be able to sue,
you know, and I won. They compensated
me. And then to show you the beauty that
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala profess
blessed me with when the administration
changed Mayor Cory Booker came in to
north and one of the first things that
he did they promoted me and elevated my
status to a position now I'm the
imam/chaplain
liaison between the north police
department the mayor's office and the
community at large I now work as a
chaplain imam in the police department
which had never existed before and I'm
the first Muslim in this position. And
what I do on a day-to-day basis, I
respond to crisis, homicides,
um child molestations,
uh domestic violence, um fires, things
like that. And what we do is we embrace
and try to give counsel. And the
alhamdulillah the very nice thing about
what I do
is I don't have to tell anybody oh yeah
you know I'm coming here as a minister.
No I don't compromise with what I
believe in. I'm a Muslim. I I come there
and I tell you I'm a Muslim. You know if
you need my services, you know,
alhamdulillah. I mean if you like a
Christian, I could go get a Christian,
you know, or a Jew. But it's a nice
position to be in to have labored so
long, 23 years, and now it's like I'm at
the top of the mountain getting ready to
retire. And alhamdulillah, I can work
for Allah.
I was working for Allah then undercover,
but now the cover is off and everybody
know who I am and why I'm doing what I
do. Now tell us at that time when the
pressure was on it was the heat was just
coming down on you a lot of people would
have buckled what was going through your
mind that you were like you put up this
fight you you went through what is
called a jihad
you know and I'm glad that you bring
this point out because so many people
think that jihad is going and and and
bombing you know Christians and Jews no
this term jihad initially when it came
in the Quran
It was
something for the Muslims to pay
attention to. Allah was trying to tell
the Muslims, "Listen, I know you're new.
I know you're new with Islam. Just
struggle with it. Struggle with it. And
in time, you'll see that it'll become
better for you. For me, when this first
happened, and I'll be honest with you,
you know, I'm not going to tell you that
there was a hundred men trying to get
me, you know, in a room."
Allah made it easy. He made it easy for
me. And I say that because the press
came and they used to stake out just to
try to get a picture of me. But see, who
is this guy dealing with this case? You
know, they wanted to talk to me. They
wanted to interview me. And Allah just
guided me. Listen, people used to call
me from the job and say, "Yo, go in the
back door because the press is waiting
for you when you come to work."
You had a lot of guys on the job that
was saying things like, you know, I
mean, if you didn't want the job, why
didn't you, you know, why didn't you cut
your beard when you first came here? I
did cut my beard when I first started
because I knew that I would never get in
the door with a beard. They would stop
me from the gate. So, I shaved the beard
off just to get in. And then when I got
in, you know, I was determined to try to
leave some Islamic legacy, you know, for
the Muslims. At the same time too, not
knowing what the outcome would be, I
wanted to stand up for Allah's religion.
And I wanted the angels to write me down
as standing for Allah's religion. And in
doing all that, in my heart, Allah made
it easy. Allah made it easy. Because I'm
not going to tell you that this is
something that anybody could just do and
just go in there fearless. No, I'm
scared like anybody else. But I
believed. I believed that Allah I didn't
know what would happen. I remember the
first day when the attorney called me to
his office. I came to his office with
brother Faru who also was a part of my
lawsuit. And I walked in and I said to
the attorney, I said, "Listen, let me
ask you a question." He said, "Yeah." I
said, "How does it feel to win a battle
without even throwing a blow?" He said,
"I don't understand." I said, "They
think they fighting with me. They not
fighting with me. It's not my rule of
wearing a beard. It's his rule."
The lawyer said, "Well, let's just see."
He said, "Because um, you know, I'm not
a very very religious person." the day
that the case was over.
Finally, I went to the lawyer and I
said, "Do you remember the first thing
that I said to you?" He said, "No." I
said, "You don't remember me asking you
how does it feel to win a battle without
even throwing a blow?" He said, "You did
say that. You did say that." No. So,
alhamdulillah, you know, out of
everything, you know, standing up for
Allah is something that some people they
want to do it and sometimes they mix up
their intentions. What I really, really
hope out of all of this here though, I
really hope that Allah gives me the
reward for standing up for him and not
showing off.
Yes,
I hope that all of us do. Tell us, give
us some advice for you got some sisters.
I get emails that are buckling and
they're the pressure from society with
the hijab. You got this situation with
the beard. You got people at work now
and they're scared to go off and make
their their prayer. This is just a great
example of how when you do what your
creator wants you to do and the beard, I
mean, I just want to make a detail. This
is something that all the prophets wore,
right? But tell us give us some advice
for for those people who are the sisters
who are having problems because of
pressure about the hijab what other
people are going to say what other
people are going to think you know and
you know um there's something that the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam told
us and that I really really want whoever
is going through any kind of difficulty
I want to tell you this here and
selfishly I want to ask you to make dua
for me because of two reasons the First
the prophet said sallallahu alaihi
wasallam that 50,000 years before Allah
created the universe
the first thing he created was the pen
and he gave the pen a soul and an
intelligence and he called the pen and
told the pen write and the pen said I
don't know what to write and Allah said
write what I tell you to write and he
told the pen everything that would ever
be throughout time. This is a principle
in Islam that you'll find that is
attached to the
divine decree. Remember that whatever
position that you find yourself in, it
is divinely decreed for you to be there.
What you don't know and what causes you
anxiety and fear is you don't know the
outcome.
But listen, part of the belief of the
Muslim is that we believe in the good
and the bad of the we believe that the
bad of it is good. Therefore, if you
know that this is Allah's rule,
ask Allah to give you the strength to
stand up for it. Because if you stand
and you hold your ground, believe me, if
you even if you get fired, Allah will
give you the victory. The last thing the
prophet said sallallahu alaihi wasallam
that the mujah that the person who goes
out in jihad struggling remember we
saying that it means struggle. The
person that struggles for Allah, he gets
one or two rewards. The prophet said and
you can find this hadith in the book of
jihad. He said either he is killed
either he's killed and he gets jennah or
he gets the war booty the thing that he
fought for the thing that he went out
for.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam he didn't lie. Alhamdulillah we
got the war booty and we hope that Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala will give us
gentlemen.
Thank you Shay for being with us.
No, thank you for having me.
And thank you for sitting through
another episode of the Dean Show. So you
see how this story inshallah can help
you benefit and can increase your iman.
And to remind you that there is one
creator. He is the one that has created
you. So he is the one that you should
obey. He is the one that you want to
please. If you're worried day and night
about what the other people are going to
do and what the other people think now,
you're going to be displeasing your
creator. So ask him as the sheh had told
us to to make it easy for you to to to
help you to strengthen you and inshallah
everything will be all right. We look
forward to have you again next time.
Every week we're here on the
deanshow.com. t henshow.com.
Until next time, assalamu alaykum. Peace
be unto you.