A movement must know its history as it plans for the future. Allah has created us in successive generations, where each generation has the opportunity to learn from the successes and the mistakes of its previous generation. Allah dedicated much of the Quran to teaching the Ummah of Muhammad PBUH of the previous Muslim ummah, and previous prophets, and their nations and tribes. Furthermore, the 1400 years of Islamic history after the Prophet Muhammad PBUH illustrates a series of challenges confronting the ummah, and how our righteous predecessors contended with those challenges using Allah's guidance. YM is a fairly new organization, even though none of its current members or leaders were born when the organization was founded. It is imperative that we learn about the Young Muslim experience before YM existed. Who were some of these Young Muslims that took Islam to the streets with the Quran as their guides, and Muhammad PBUH as their leader? We're honored to have two such brothers with us at this year's YMLC. Imam Khalid Griggs came from the Jim Crow South, and his yearning for justice led him to Islam to embrace Islam as a young college student in Washington, D.C. in 1972. For the last half century, he has dedicated his life to furthering the message of Islam and generations of YM leadership have sought his advice and guidance. Imam Raqeeb Abdul Jabbar is a child of Brooklyn's State Street Mosque, where he was mentored by the legendary Shaikh Daud Faisal. He has spend over 4 decades as an Imam and counselor across the U.S. in Masajid, prisons, and hospitals. The Islamic Movement literature which many YM members still look to for direction on how to implement Islam in our society was the very same literature that shaped the minds of these brothers during their youth. And they took those principles to the streets to deliver the message of Islam to a downtrodden people. This is the Prequel to Young Muslims.
