Statements from the cofounders of An Nasr Productions
In the name of Allah, Ar Rahmaan-ir Raheem, Prayers and peace be upon the last of the Prophets and Messengers Muhammad bin 'Abdullah.
When ANP was originally founded, our main objective was to spread the Deen of Islam to non-Muslims using Hip-Hop. Later, we expanded or changed our objective to invite Muslims to return to the Islamic way of Life.
Over the past six months, as I have been building this site, and listening to our collection of music, I have debated with myself as to if we have fulfilled our objectives.
After much thought and consideration, I unfortunately have come to the conclusion that we have not. In fact, I think we have failed miserably.
The majority of our songs present a slew of ideas, which are not presented in the proper depth, nor in a coherent manner.
Also in the light of recent times the things we have said in our songs can be taken out of context, and do more harm then good.
The biggest thing I didn't take into consideration when I co-founded ANP was the possibility of actually promoting Hip-Hop. I am afraid by creating this music we may actually have lead more Muslims to listen to Hip-Hop rather then non-Muslims to listen to the Quran.
I am also posting below the statement from ANP's other co-founder who left almost 3 years ago.
I hope after reading both of our statements, Muslims will realize that Islamic Hip-Hop is only for the entertainment sessions, and there are better ways of presenting Islamic ideas and doing Dawah.
May Allah bless me for my intentions, and forgive me for the outcome of my actions...Ameen.
I also ask for the forgiveness from anyone who may have been mislead
Taqiudeen bin Patrick
As salaamu 'alaykum wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakaatuh!
For those who read this forum, that are familiar with ANP, and the general public.
My name is Abu Mansur 'Omar. I am one of the founders of ANP.
We established ANP back in 1994 with the intent of using a new medium to spread Islaam to the people, especially those who listen to rap music and poetry. As we know rap music is a very popular medium in which many youth take their ideas and concepts about life from. Being one who was not born into a Muslim family I know, first hand, the effects that this medium has on the youth. Also, I witnessed my hometown turn from a peaceful happy place to live into a violent, dangerous, and drug infested city. I witnessed first hand the effects of the negative gangster rap as it turned skateboarders into gangsters and nerds into hustlers. This music made a way of life appealing to the people and made them strive hard to find a way into that life. As we know, as the trends in the music changed then the people who listen to this music changed. I remember when we used to wear wrist bands and pumas breakdancing after watching movies like 'Breakin' and 'Beat Street' and to smoking marijuana!
and drinking beer after listening to Dr Dre's 'The Cronic' album. There is much more to speak about on this topic, but I believe this is sufficient.
So, after all this, we became Muslims and thought," what better message to put forth than the message of Islaam in a song?" Something that people would listen to over and over and begin to ask questions and search further into the beautiful deen of Islaam. So we endeavoured to make songs to help spread Allah's deen. We asked those we trusted about the permissibility of such an action and they told us the ruling and we proceeded with full force. As time went on we produced many songs on a variety of topics; some which we released to the public, others which we decided not to make public; but at any rate we were very serious about our endeavour.
Throughout the years,as we became older in age and our knowledge increased,new issues started to arise. We began to search for details regarding the issue of music and its permissibility. I have personally looked into it somewhat deeper and I am convinced that this is not the way I would like proceed in giving da'wa to Allah, 'azza wa jalla. It is known amongst my brothers in ANP and now I would like to make it publically known that:
I free myself from ANP and whatever ANP produces or says from this day forward. I agree with their sayings if it is according to the Qur'an and the Sunnah and I disagree if it is to the contrary.
I ask Allahu, ta'ala to guide us to what pleases Him and to forgive our sins. I encourage every Muslim who reads this post to become aquainted with the book of Allah, ta'ala and the Sunnah of the Messenger, sala Allahu 'alayhi wa salam. Learn your deen, learn its language, and know that seeking knowledge is obligatory.
Knowledge is power and the enemies of Islaam know they can't defeat us militarily, but when they defeated us mentally and tried to distort the knowledge by introducing foreign concepts into our deen like nationalism, like not talking about politics in Islaam, like 'The Nation State', and like 'assimilation into Kufr political systems', it became easy to defeat the Muslims because those things which maintained the unity of the Muslims and strenthened them were destroyed and we were left without organization and leadership. We became like the sheeps without a shepard left to the wolves.
It is our job to spread the deen of Allah without compromising one letter and to stand up for justice in all times and places. And this struggle continues.......
May Allah accept this from me and I ask His forgiveness.
Abu Mansur 'Omar bin Lionel
