Saajid Lipham is an American Muslim convert, currently studying at the Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi Arabia.
In his recent video, Saajid Lipham critisizes Nike’s new ad titled “You Can’t Stop Us” as an attack on Islam and calls upon Muslims to boycott Nike. Saajid Lipham protests Nike’s use of a Muslim woman wearing a niqab as a symbol of backward belief that has to change in an advocate for LGBT rights.
The description fot Nike’s ad reads:
You can’t stop Megan Rapinoe, Serena Williams, or Lebron James. Just as you can’t stop Naomi Osaka, Cristiano Ronaldo or Leo Baker. Because as athletes*, we are never alone. Sport unites us. Strengthens us. Keeps us pushing ahead. No matter what, we will always come back stronger, together. You can’t stop sport. Because you can’t stop us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4dDs0T7sM
Here is the transcript of Saajid Lipham’s video:
In the name of Allah. Praise be to Allah. Prayer for and peace be upon the messenger of Allah. Peace, mercy and blessing of Allah be upon you. [Arabic] So a few days ago Nike put out an ad called “you can’t stop us.” And this ad already has over 35,000,000 views on YouTube alone. Basically this ad it’s a split screen. And they play this motivational music in the background, so please with your heart strings in it, really manipulates your emotions. And they have this intense footage of athletes, and what they do in part of this ad is they’ll say something negative, but then they will show how they can’t be stopped they’ll mention something motivational, and what they deem to be positive. So there’s this quote: ‘When we’re held back’, that’s a negative part, ‘will go farther and harder.’ I guess the positive motivational part, right. If we’re not taken seriously, we’ll prove that wrong. And here’s the kicker. And if we don’t fit the sport, we’ll change the sport, and when they say that, what type imagery did they use? What did they decide to show on their split screen? They decided to show and if we don’t fit the sport, they’re showing this new copy, this Muslim woman covered, skateboarding into the split screen, and then when they say will change the sport this Muslim niqabi [wearing a niqab] turns into this pro LGBT advocate with some rainbow smoke thing, you can’t really tell what gender they are, it’s probably a woman, who wants to be a man, that’s what it looks like to me, but you know it’s really, praise be to Allah, think about this, think about what a blatant spit in the face Nike is doing towards Islam with this ad. We already know, if you’ve been paying any attention over the years, we already know, they want to change Islam, they want to do away with Islam. Islam is seen as backwards, but the LGBT movement, this is seen as progress. Muslim women who actually cover their beauty in front of people who have no business seeing their beauty, so that men who actually marry them and take care of them and have children with them and have a strong family bond with them, that’s backwards. But if a man wants to have sex with another man, that is so amazingly incredibly great. What can be better than that? If a man wants to become a woman and a woman wants to become a man and they want to have a relationship together that is a progress, that is so amazing. But if you believe in Allah, you believe in his prophet [Mohammad], in his book [Quran]. Oh no, you are backwards. You know it’s one thing to just push this agenda, right. It’s another thing to so blatantly use a Muslim woman like that to take a shot at Islam so blatantly like that. Have the Muslims become so weak without any sort of a backbone whatsoever that they feel so confident in doing such a thing? Well, I don’t know you’ve got a lot of the Muslim leaders and public figures cosigning a lot of this behavior directly or indirectly, dancing at the LGBT rallies, publishing articles, advocating for some of the right saying ‘we need to March with the LGBT’, taking selfies within advertising and promoting those who are pushing for LGBT rights within the Muslim community. Where do you think that leads? Where else could it lead other than a niqabi [Muslim woman wearing a niqab] skateboarding into LGBT activism with no niqab, a woman trying to be a man. Why wouldn’t it lead to that? Why wouldn’t it? It’s either going to lead to that or Muslims are actually going to get a spine, get a backbone and not let people disrespect us like that, not try to change our own beliefs, what we know to be the truth like that. This idea that this community, LGBT, these people who promote it, it doesn’t affect anyone. Why does anyone care about that? Why would anyone speak out against it? It doesn’t affect them. Obviously that is a blatant lie. They can’t stuff it down your throat enough, they can’t. You have to be on board with it, you have to teach your kids, you have to. It has to enter the schools. We have to push this. We have to change the niqabi [Muslim woman wearing a niqab] to become a pro LGBT advocate. That’s what we have to do. Where is this live and let live ideology? It doesn’t exist. So what the Muslims are going to do about it? I’m gonna boycott Nike. I think every self respecting Muslim who is aware of this sort of stuff has to boycott them. How can you let them disrespect your religion, disrespect the deen [religion] of Allah, praise be to Him, [religion of Islam] so blatantly, and just sit back and not do anything. We should all boycott them and I don’t care if it doesn’t put a dent in their finances. I don’t care if people countering by more Nike just to show the Muslims. I don’t care, because Allah, praise be to Him, He is Al-Razzaq [the Provider], He is the one who provides for people. He is the one in control of all things, and that all money is good money. But one thing that has to happen is Muslims have to actually come together and have a little bit of strength, a little bit of a backbone. For example, Nike would never do something like this against the Jewish community. Why didn’t they have a rabbi skateboarding into becoming a drag queen? Why don’t they do that? Do you think the Jewish community would sit back and be okay with that? Obviously they wouldn’t dare do that. But for some reason they feel like it’s fine to do that when it comes to the Muslims. And Nike they close their ad with ‘nothing can stop what we can do together, you can’t stop sport you can’t stop us’. Who can’t stop athletes? Who can’t stop Nike? Who you’re talking to? The Coronavirus obviously stop sports, just a little virus that we can figure out. Who can’t stop you? Where is this arrogance coming from? Not only can Allah stop everything, put an end to this world, but eventually we all are going to die and He’s going to resurrect this, and He’s going to either send us to Janna, to paradise, or the hellfire. So you will be stopped. It will come to an end and we’ll see the results of this ideology you’re pushing, and about you trying to change the truth, trying to change the religion of Allah. We will come to know and all the Muslims will see, we will be judged according to how we dealt with these sorts of situations. Are we willing to change things to the best of our abilities for the sake of Allah so He can reward us in the hereafter or we just gonna sit back and just watch the world burn and twiddle our thumbs. I’m boycotting Nike. I think all the Muslims should boycott Nike. Allah knows best. May Allah reward you [with] goodness. Peace, mercy and blessing of Allah be upon you.
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