Imam calls for fairness in national resource allocation

Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Imam Rasheed Karim has called for greater eq­ui­ty in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al re­sources, say­ing Mus­lims should re­ceive their “fair share of the na­tion­al pie.”

Karim made the re­marks in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing his Eid ul Fitr ser­mon at the Masjid ul Faaraq on Greenidge Street, Fe­lic­i­ty, on Sat­ur­day. While he com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment for in­creas­ing fi­nan­cial al­lo­ca­tions to masjids for this year’s Eid cel­e­bra­tions, he said the sup­port re­mained in­suf­fi­cient com­pared with the needs of the Is­lam­ic com­mu­ni­ty.

“The boun­ties of the coun­try should be dis­sem­i­nat­ed equal­ly. When it comes to fi­nanc­ing of projects for the ben­e­fit of the Is­lam­ic com­mu­ni­ty, that is not there,” Karim said. He high­light­ed the pe­ri­od un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion (2010–2015), led by prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, not­ing that con­tri­bu­tions were made to all Ja­ma’ats. “That is some­thing I wish could con­tin­ue. It should be main­tained year af­ter year, where the Is­lam­ic com­mu­ni­ty can ben­e­fit fi­nan­cial­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly,” he added.

Karim al­so ques­tioned the lev­el of na­tion­al ex­pen­di­ture on Car­ni­val, ar­gu­ing that the fes­ti­val pro­vides lit­tle di­rect ben­e­fit to Mus­lims. “Car­ni­val is of­ten de­scribed as a cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ty from which every­one ben­e­fits, but I would say the Is­lam­ic com­mu­ni­ty does not ben­e­fit from any cul­tur­al as­pect of it,” he said.

In his Eid mes­sage, Karim stressed the im­por­tance of uni­ty with­in the glob­al Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, stat­ing that dis­uni­ty has left Mus­lims vul­ner­a­ble to ex­ploita­tion both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. “Be­cause of a lack of uni­ty, peo­ple around the world and in our own coun­try are be­ing tak­en ad­van­tage of. There is a lot of in-house fight­ing, whether in­ter­na­tion­al­ly or lo­cal­ly, and that has to be cor­rect­ed. Uni­ty in the Mus­lim ummah around the world is im­per­a­tive,” he said.

Karim al­so ques­tioned the mo­tives be­hind on­go­ing con­flicts in the Mid­dle East, ask­ing whether such wars are tru­ly aimed at achiev­ing peace. “Is this war to bring peace and bet­ter­ment for the world, or for a cer­tain group? Bil­lions are spent on weapons while bil­lions of peo­ple con­tin­ue to suf­fer. That does not re­flect hu­man­i­ty,” he said.

He warned that hu­man­i­ty has strayed from its in­tend­ed path, not­ing that while mankind was cre­at­ed in the best form, it has de­gen­er­at­ed due to a fail­ure to up­hold be­lief in the Cre­ator.

“Be­cause when we look at what is hap­pen­ing, you're go­ing to re­alise that bil­lions and bil­lions of dol­lars is spent on war­heads and am­mu­ni­tions and so forth, while bil­lions of peo­ple are suf­fer­ing.

It doesn't equate to hu­man­i­ty. It doesn't tell you, well, this is a hu­man race. It tells you clear­ly that we have de­grad­ed our­selves. As the Quran says, Al­lah cre­at­ed us in the best mode, but hu­man be­ings, we have de­gen­er­at­ed our­selves to the low­est low. Be­cause we have not ac­cept­ed the one­ness and the be­lief of the Cre­ator.”

He added that true uni­ty can on­ly be achieved by ad­her­ing to the teach­ings of the Holy Prophet Muham­mad and the prin­ci­ples out­lined in the Quran.