The Supreme Court Rules Over A Muslims Beard

Come and see what everyone's talking about.

Welcome to another episode of the D show, the D 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 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. 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 didn't actually know jihad, the struggle for what was right. And we're gonna talk about this. today. We're gonna let this gentleman actually detective Sharon, did I say it right? Rather, for sure. Cool. So cool. And we actually have his story of how he actually came to Islam. You can also see that on the D show calm. And please go

ahead. Tell us how this came about and take it away.

I think started like about in 1995 and 1995. I was I had previously worked undercover in an unmarked unit. And

something happened one day that I tried to respond to assist officer. And in responding to assist officer, there was a manhole cover that was extended up off the ground. So I took the unmarked car and I was driving it and then 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, I can't go back and I can't.

I could go back into the plane. I mean, go back into uniform. But they wanted me to shave my beard off. No, because your detective didn't actually have. All detectives don't have to have. I mean, they don't have to be clean face. You either have to have an excuse or note from a doctor saying that you have what's called pseudofolliculitis. Meaning that you have a skin problem that when you shave, or you are detected. So when they put me back into uniform, they said, Listen, you gotta shave that beard off. I said, I'm not shaving my beard. I said, Well, you don't shave your beard, you're gonna get fired. So I said, Well, listen, you know, Allah gave me this job. You know, I mean,

if somebody doesn't want me to be a policeman anymore, then I'm not gonna take care of me now is this what you're saying to yourself? You're saying this to myself, okay. I'm saying this to myself. So I told him, I say, Listen, I'm not gonna shave my beard and say, well, you don't shave your beard, and they're gonna fire you. Now, this is your boss telling you, right? So the union contacted me and told me that they have provided me with an attorney. And that this attorney was gonna 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

gonna need a note from a doctor before Friday, or they're gonna 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,

you know, just let a love decree what he decrees. So he said, Listen, 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, 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, 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,

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 fax the note to the lawyer. The lawyer got to know and the lawyer called me back and said, Listen, the doctor can't say that you have Silvio flicky itis just said that you can't say that. He said, I can't do that.

So I said, Okay, you can't do that. So he said, Listen, you know what? Tomorrow you're gonna have to go to another doctor. So I went to another doctor, a female Juris 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. And you don't have to shave right now. So I faxed that to the lawyer, the lawyer said, This is not good. He said, we're gonna have to go get what's called a cause of state, meaning that your job can't terminate you, you know, until we get this stuff before a federal judge.

When he called me up next week.

He said, Listen,

I mean, not next week, that week, he said, Listen, I'm gonna have to get you in front of a federal judge with within a two hour span. He said, so be ready. When I call you to just come right. The Federal Court came the federal court, the judge said,

You know what? I mean, what is the urgency of getting a cause of state 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 gonna fire him. He said, if they fire him, I can put them right back. So what's the issue? He said, Well, you're on a winning cause of state, you just said, Okay, I'm gonna give you a cause of state and I'll set this matter down for a trial. Next thing I know, we went like maybe three, four months later,

and it came to trial. And I'll never forget, 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.

So the 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 to the lawyer didn't understand. He said, What is this? He turned around and said, Are you assuming I said, Yeah, yeah. Tell me tell me.

You say Yes, Your Honor. He said, Okay. Then proceed. And he said, Your Honor, you know, representing the police officers, two of us it was two of us. I said, For Abdul Aziz. And sherco 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 a game, a long, long spill, and I tell you something, I'm not an illiterate. I didn't understand one word that Montoya was saying was all kinds of legal jargon. I'm looking over to another lawyer.

And the lawyer.

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. It's on 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 said, I'm not persecuting Muslims. I'm not a persecuted Muslim. 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 IoT, which is a hallucinogen,

a train conductor, smoking coyote would put everybody at risk, because suppose he has a looser nation, if somebody is on a track, and just hit the brakes, and everybody goes in a whiplash, it can hurt people. So he says, 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.

Allahu Akbar, and the judge didn't stop us and none because you know that this was a major victory. Now, if somebody some of our non Muslim audience thinks, can you tell us what along with but so don't think of some word.

That means no, it means praising the gut and recognize that there is nothing greater than God. There's nothing greater than him himself. And this is what we saying when we say Allahu Akbar. And we're thinking about for this mighty victory because we knew that Omar was the one who always

allowed this to happen. And it was a major victory. It guarantee 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 have told us have we taken our case to state court, and 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. Now what the court, why did they continue to want to push this after they continued it because they knew that this was landmark case. And technically speaking, I used to be the mayor's bodyguard, the mayor of the city of North Shore, James, and sharp names, he did it to punish me out of retaliation, because at one particular time he went to a nightclub in the nightclub was all new 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, What are you talking to? I said, I didn't come here. For leadership. I had leadership 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 North, I'm gonna send you back to patrol. We 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 or anybody else. And when we came back to North, Jonah, he took us detective bad from me, because that's a, that's a provision. They give it to you, if you worthy of it. He took it back, took all the perks back and send 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 bit when I worked for you. And that's how it all started. Over the second bout when they sent me to the circuit court. The court of appeals, there's a judge now called judge

Alito. Alito just got appointed recently to the Supreme Court. I went before him and 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. That case was that I was breaking the spirit of decorum. It's the spirit of decorum that police paramilitary 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 breached the whole thing, and said, he's breaking the spirit of decorum. They didn't try to argue the case on safety issue 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 I couldn't present that argument. But nice. So you've been with the company for the 2013. I'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 in with a beard. They went into the issue about the presidency of the United States, Lincoln, or beer. You know,

they rolled in my favorite. They wrote them my favorite this was the second bout. And you know what I've thought about all 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. I really wanted to sue the city. And I said to myself, if the city cease fighting, I'm not gonna 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, sh, a, KOR,

Mostafa m u, s, ta, fa, you can Google that. And it'll bring up the whole case that you can see for yourself. And hamdulillah. 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 are one

they compensated me. And then they show you the beauty that Allah subhanaw taala professed, blessed me with when the administration changed. Now, Cory Booker came in to know. And one of the first things that he did, they promoted me and elevated my status to a position now, I'm the Imam slash chaplain, liaison between the New York Police Department, the mayor's office, and the community at launch. I now work as a chaplain, a man in the police department, which I'd 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,

child molestation, domestic violence, fires, things like that. And what we do is we embrace and try to give counsel and hamdulillah 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. But what I believe in, I'm a Muslim, I come in and tell you, I'm a Muslim. You know, if you need my services, you know, Alhamdulillah. I mean, if you like a Christian, I can go get a Christian, you know, or 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 hamdulillah I can work for a month.

I was working for a lot then on the cover. But now the covers off and everybody knows 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 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 you had is known and Bahman you know, Christians and Jews know, this term jihad. Initially, when it came in the Koran. 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 will 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 100 million trying to get me, you know, in a row minute, alone 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 to see who was 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 do you know, why didn't you cut your beard when you first came in? I did cut my beard when I first started, because I knew that I would never get in the door wouldn't be they would stop me from the gate. So I shaved the beard all 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 to not knowing what the outcome would be. I wanted to stand up for lost religion. And I wanted the angels to write me down as standing for laws religion, and in doing all that in my heart. A man made

it easy. Allah made it easy because I'm not going to tell you that this is something that anybody could

Do I just go in there fearless? No, I'm scared like anybody else. But I believe, I believe 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 through, 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 never fight with me. It's not my role of winning a bit as his role.

The lawyer said, well, let's just see, he said, because, you know, I'm 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. He did say that. No, so Alhamdulillah, you know, out of everything, you know, standing up for Love 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

Bucklin. 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 dittos to something and all the prophets were 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 job that other people are going to say what other people are going to think, you know, and, you know,

there's something that the prophet SAW the long line was somebody 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 up for me, because of two reasons. The first, the province of Somalia, why they were some of them, that 50,000 years before law 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 pin and told the pin, right.

And appends it on know what the right and on loss it right what I tell you to write, and he told the pin, everything that would ever be throughout time. This is a principle in Islam that you'll find that is attached to the Father, the Divine Decree, remember that whatever position that you find yourself in, it is divinely decree, for you to be there.

What you don't know and what causes your 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 other. We believe that the bad of it is good. Therefore, if you know that this is a laws 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 something along the lines of some of them that the Mujahideen that the person who goes out in jihad, struggling, remember we saying that it means struggle. The person that struggles for love, he gets one or to rewards, the prophet said, and you can find this in the book of jihad. He said either he is killed.

Even he's killed, and he gets agenda or he gets the war building. The thing that he fought for the thing that he went out for,

and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he didn't lie. Alhamdulillah we got the war booty. And we hope that Allah subhanho wa Taala Forgive us, gentlemen.

Thank you, sir, for being with us. No, thank you for having me. It's like a little hideaway anthem, and Evans is up. And thank you for sitting through another episode of the deen show. So you see how this story is shala can help you benefit and can

Increase your emaan 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 flees. If you're worried day and night about what the other people are going to do and what other people think now, you're going to be displeasing your Creator. So ask him as the shake had told us to, to make it easy for you, to help you to strengthen you, and inshallah Everything will be alright, we look forward to have you again next time. Every week. We're here on the deen show.com th, E, D, E and show.com. Until next time, I'll set on what April peace be unto you