Selling liquor creates religious conflict for Muslims

Selling liquor creates religious conflict for Muslims

Oakland store owners torn over promoting product their faith shuns
By Cecily Burt, STAFF WRITER
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_3301887

OAKLAND — Amin Nagi tried for years to reconcile his Islamic faith with owning a liquor store. In the end, the internal struggle and family pressure proved too much.

Nagi sold the store this year and opened a bright, airy Super Discount mart in Oakland's Fruitvale district. He sells loads of stuff — baseball caps, helium balloons, luggage, clothes, watches. Noticeably absent: liquor. He is finally at peace with his beliefs, which forbid association with alcohol
...

"Our religion does not allow us to sell alcohol, but we have many excuses to do it," said Mohamed Saleh Mohamed, president of the Yemeni-American Grocers Association. "This is the worst business; this is wrong, the worst thing I could ever think about. But we're caught in a Catch-22. I'm not saying what we do is right, but it's within the system. The government is not going to take it away, because they need the money and the taxes.
...

"When I prayed, I would say 'What am I doing?' I had a dream to get out, and I'm very happy," he said. "It bothered my wife and my father. He was totally against me. He would say, 'I raise you with halal, the right things. I worked for you, you shouldn't do this.' It wasn't easy. My kids said, 'Hey, we don't want you in this business no more, get out.'

"Me too, I always felt guilty. I pray to Allah for forgiveness because it's not a good thing; not a good product to sell."

You know, at a time when the peer pressure is on in the U.S. and the government not only condones but promotes alcohol, when you can't walk into many stores anymore without those alcoholic beverages staring you in the face, and at restuarants you open the menu and under beverages you see beer and other alcohol listed, when you open up your mail and advertisements for alcohol fall out, and there's a liquor store in every town, its good to see someone has stood up to that pressure finally and taken a stand against the very thing Allah (swt) has forbidden us to indulge in and handle. We need more stories like this. With the negative being portrayed whenever Islam or Muslims are mentioned in the media, we need to hear positive things like this, where our brothers and sisters have overcome adversity, temptation and pressure to conform and being like everyone else. We need to set an example for this nation, and others, not give in to peer pressure.

Peace!

by alcohol, and I find it sad. So many people afraid of who they really are, they can only dare show it by indulging in alcohol. Others use it as an excuse to run away from themselves and their true feelings. I would find it very hard to sell or even give alcohol to anyone because of this-I have felt this way for many years, even before I found my spiritual path.

Ah, but brothers and sisters, have you not felt the drunkenness of Love, which is found not in the bottle, but in the zikar? That drunkenness that leads to sweet sobriety in the Presence of the Beloved!

Salaam