Mohammed Mana – Immigrants vs Converts

			You know, there is one point that we touch upon closer towards the end of the class that I feel is
really, really important. And I, myself haven't explored it enough I really would love to.
		

			And I'm trying to give it more thought. And I would really love for the students to do that as well,
especially because, you know, we come from many different backgrounds, right.
		

			And a lot of us are children of immigrants or grandchildren of immigrants.
		

			And I think that's really interesting.
		

			You know, one of the things that we talk about is we talk about the situation of any slot in towards
the end of Moses life.
		

			And then sort of, you know, we briefly touch upon some of the events that took place with Benny
slate after Moosa. And, you know, they went through a period of essentially being lost in the
cyanide. Yeah, you know, a period of 40 years of losses in sort of an idea. Now, when they say 40
years, is that mean? actual 40 years or? Okay, yeah, 40 years. And that that's really interesting
because benissa is a big community they're a big nation was that was not their only messenger,
right? They had other messengers, other prophets alongside Moosa. Who do we know that or, for
example, we talked about well, how don't obviously right right, brother, okay, his brother, but also
		

			you should you should be known, so you should be known is also a prophet. Yes. He's a prophet. He's
an epi okay. Was he a prophet when Messiah Salaam met him?
		

			Well, he was he was a young, he was one of the youth. Okay.
		

			And, and he kind of represents this generation of vinius la el, that did not grow up under the
oppression in Egypt. Oh, so he's kind of like, one thing. Okay. Egypt, yeah, host exit. So you're
talking about many, many years, right? That period of being lost for 40 years? 40 years? Not a short
amount of time? No. So you have the emergence of a whole new generation. Okay. You know, you share
is referred to insulted calf in the story of Musa with Holden.
		

			When Allah says the most godly fighter who, okay, and fertile refers to a young man. So younger and
age a young youth. Yeah. So, if that was his age, at the time of monster, that means, you know, he
lived on after Moosa, and he was amongst that generation of millennials like that, that did not grow
up under that oppression. And that has a big impact on on the psyche. Okay, when you grow up under
that much pressure,
		

			and, and tyranny, you know, that really affects your behavior affects your thinking. It affects your
ability to think critically and to think outside the box. It affects your ability to have foresight,
okay, and to think about, you know, the future and planning and strategizing for the future. And
oftentimes, you repeat many of the same mistakes as the oppressor. Okay. So is it fair to say this
cycle? Is it fair to say that by the time that moose is
		

			passed away, the nation of Linnaeus or eel is probably a whole new group of people than those who
left? Egypt? Yeah, the death? There's definitely a generation change. There might have been some
people still remaining from that older generation. Yeah. But for sure, in terms of leadership, okay,
in terms of the kind of movers and shakers within that community, there definitely would be some
changes there. Okay. And, and I think that's something to really reflect upon, because we often look
towards our communities and our, you know,
		

			you know, local communities and national and global and whatnot. And there's a lot of
disappointment. Some people have disappointment, some people have certain expectations, you know,
and the idea is, you know, what impact? What impact has the experiences of, of, you know, the last,
the last several decades had on on the way we think and the way we behave? And the way we look to
the future, you know, or, or lack thereof, you know, and a lot of it is, a lot of it is influenced
by the cultural baggage that, you know, we came from, versus the newer generation. The things that
influence them.
		

			I would, I would believe,
		

			is significantly different. Right.
		

			Yeah, definitely. I mean, look, they were not living under normal circumstances, right. I mean,
those circumstances are intense.
		

			There's a lot of strain. Yeah. pressure. You know, you're out in the wind, literally out in the
wilderness. Yeah. So so that's gonna force you to start thinking differently you're gonna have to in
order to survive, you know, yeah.
		

			And so I really would love for the students to take that opportunity to think really deeply about
that. On a, you know, from from, from a psychological and sociological perspective of, you know, the
experiences that, that we as individuals, as families, and as communities and nations have gone
through in the past few decades, whether we are immigrants, or children of immigrants or
grandchildren of immigrants, or perhaps we are, perhaps we are children of people that lived in
those kinds of conditions of oppression, colonization, you know, or even if we even if we are, you
know, most most of us are essentially, children of immigrants, you know, somewhere back in the line,
		

			you know, but but even different communities, different ethnic communities went through different
sorts of experiences, I think it's really important to pause and reflect on what kind of impact
those experiences have on the way my great grandparents thought and behaved. And then my parents,
and then have I inherited any of that subconsciously, without realizing, am I perpetuating certain
behaviors that might not be so productive, or wise? Or just generally asking the question, why do we
look? Why do we think the way we do what, what are these experiences that have put us in this type
of a paradigm? I mean, this is where this is the idea. This is where culture comes into play, right?
		

			It's like, it's a combination of really two things, what we actually deem important, whether it's
said or not said, whether it's explicit, or just simply
		

			just known, coupled with
		

			how we do things. Yeah, right. And I think this is really a blessing. And something that we greatly
benefit from any of our of our beloved brothers and sisters that are converts, is they actually put
themselves in a situation where, you know, many of them, of course, each of them comes with a
different story in different set of experiences. But but many of them when you speak to them, they
talk about going through this process of putting everything behind them, and kind of starting from
New. And when they do that, they we learn a lot from them that they point out some of that cultural
baggage that we have introduced into the religion. And they're like, Where is that? You know, where
		

			is that in the in the deen? Where is that in their religion? And, and, you know, I think it's
important for us as a community to kind of put ourselves on check about that.
		

			A lot of the ways that we might be behaving, Islam is completely innocent from that.